Android eating Nokia’s lunch, report says
Android sales are growing at Nokia’s expense, according to the latest report from AdMob, one of the largest mobile ad networks.
“The HTC Magic (my Touch) is a Top 10 smartphone in both North America and Western Europe,” says AdMob’s latest edition of its Mobile Metrics Report, a monthly publication.
All other touchscreen smartphones seem to be growing, except for Nokia’s N97 and 5800 XpressMusic models. Would most Americans be able to identify an N97 or a… Continue Reading
Nokia to buy travel social network Dopplr
Nokia has acquired Dopplr, a London-based social network focused on traveling, TechCrunch reports, based on information reportedly passed on by an anonymous source close to the deal. The deal continues Nokia’s fierce acquisition strategy, which has already rolled up small companies like Plum, Bit-Side and Cellity just in the last year.
Clearly, neither of the companies involved have confirmed the financial terms of the deal, however the TechCrunch post estimates the purchase price at 10 –… Continue Reading
Nokia’s NAVTEQ buys Acuity Mobile for location-based advertising
NAVTEQ, the arm of Nokia dedicated to mobile mapping and advertising, announced that it bought location-based advertising firm Acuity Mobile for an undisclosed sum. The deal follows NAVTEQ’s initial $2.8 million stake in the firm last year, as well as years of licensing its technology.
There are few advertising methods as seamless and relevant as location-based advertising on your mobile phone. For example, let’s you’re walking by a Godiva chocolate store — you might never have… Continue Reading
Windows apps coming to Nokia’s Ovi store
Thanks to Nokia’s Windows-powered netbook, the Nokia Booklet 3G, the Finnish company that sells more mobile phones than its next three competitors combined will soon host Windows apps in its recently launched Ovi app store. It’s Complicated, the relationship between Microsoft and Nokia. Two weeks ago, the two companies announced a partnership to port Microsoft Office to Nokia’s Symbian operating system. But Nokia won’t be rolling out any Windows Mobile phones next week alongside HTC… Continue Reading
Roundup: Nokia Money, iPhones coming to China
Nokia announces Nokia Money, a payment-by-phone service that will launch next year — The service will let anyone send and receive money with a text message or a voice call. All you need to know to send someone money is their phone number. Nokia Money will be operated by Redwood City-based Obopay, in which Nokia invested $70 million in March. The system is blessedly simple to use: You register one or more bank accounts or credit cards… Continue Reading
Nokia readies mobile payment service Nokia Money
Nokia said today that it’s going to be entering the mobile payments market next year with a product called Nokia Money, powered by mobile payments startup Obopay. With it, users will be able to send money to other people using their mobile phone numbers, as well as pay merchants and bills.
The mobile device manufacturer isn’t revealing too many details yet about how the service will take on competitors like PayPal Mobile. It sounds like it… Continue Reading
Nokia joins the netbook bandwagon with the Booklet 3G
Nokia still controls a huge chunk of the mobile market, but the device manufacturer is struggling to redefine itself as consumer interest moves to smartphones and other web-connected gadgets. Today the company announced that it’s making a big move beyond your basic mobile phone, with the release of a netbook called the Nokia Booklet 3G.
Nokia isn’t calling the device a netbook. Instead, its press release describes the Booklet 3G as a “mini-laptop” whose most important… Continue Reading
Microsoft and Nokia confirm partnership: ‘A formidable challenge for RIM’
Microsoft and Nokia announced today that, as expected, they will be working together to bring native versions of Microsoft Office to Nokia smartphones. But this is about more than just creating a version of Office for Nokia — the companies say they are working together on the “design, development and marketing of productivity solutions for the mobile professional.”
In a conference call discussing the news, Microsoft’s Stephen Elop (pictured, right) said this is the first time… Continue Reading
Microsoft probably bringing Office 2010 to Nokia phones
It’s looking increasingly likely that Microsoft and Nokia are about to announce a native version of Office 2010, the latest version of Microsoft’s ubiquitous productivity software, on Nokia smartphones.
In the past, Microsoft said there will be a native version of Office (i.e., one that you download and run on your phone) that runs on Windows Mobile phones, plus a version that runs in the web browsers of other smartphones like the iPhone. However, given the… Continue Reading
Nokia sells off Symbian professional services to Accenture
When Nokia purchased Symbian a year ago, the supersize phone maker’s explicit plan was to open up Symbian’s mobile platform as a partly open-source suite of software so that application developers would feel comfortable developing for it and contributing their improvements to Symbian’s OS.
On Thursday, at our MobileBeat 2009 conference, Symbian announced the launch of Horizon, an application publishing platform for the Symbian OS.
Today, Nokia announced the sale of its Symbian professional services group to… Continue Reading
Nokia posts 66 percent drop in profit for Q2, share price falls immediately
This morning, mobile giant Nokia reported a 66 percent drop in profits for the second quarter, and candidly admitted that it doesn’t expect to gain market share, lowering its profitability targets going forward. Almost immediately, the company’s share price plunged 14 percent.
Sales grew even thinner throughout the second quarter, falling 25 percent overall to $14 billion. Its mobile devices division alone saw a 28 percent decline in sales, hitting $9.3 billion. Nokia says it shipped… Continue Reading
Nokia and Symbian: Forget about Android, it’s all about Cutey (Qt)
Nokia, the world’s largest phone handset maker, is denying reports stemming from “industry insiders” that it is developing a smartphone that runs on Google’s Android software. Nokia said, “everyone knows that Symbian is our preferred platform for advanced mobile devices.”
However, the truth may be more complicated. Nokia is instead embracing something called Qt, a software toolbox for developers, which lets those developers port their applications to any of the major operating systems. At the moment,… Continue Reading
Nokia, RIM, Apple to standardize European phone chargers
Ten smartphone makers who control 90 percent of the European mobile market have agreed to ship a standardized charger with their phones starting next year. Gadget makers have talked about standardizing their chargers for years. This time, they have a plan to finally do it.
Motorola, Nokia, Apple, Sony Ericsson, LG, NEC, Qualcomm, Research in Motion, Samsung and Texas Instruments announced their plans Monday through the European Commission. At first, new phones will come with the… Continue Reading
Nokia plans Android netbook for 2010
“We have confirmed that Nokia is planning to enter the netbook market,” wrote Lazard Capital Markets analyst Daniel Amir in a research note published Friday morning.
Amir says Nokia’s laptop will be “a Google Android, ARM-based notebook that would be sold at carriers.” That means it’ll be about the same size and shape as the Asus netbook shown above. Nokia’s netbook will be sold as a trade-up for customers who find their smartphone keyboard and screen… Continue Reading
Roundup: 18 Android phones coming this year, MySpace hoping for innovation, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Google: Expect 18 Android phones by the end of the year — That number could be as high as 20, says Andy Rubin, senior director for mobile platforms.
News Corp. and MySpace execs say MySpace needs to innovate — During an interview at the All Things Digital conference (owned by News Corp., incidentally), MySpace chief executive Owen Van Natta also discussed concerns that the site might lose its lucrative search deal with Google, saying the… Continue Reading
Nokia’s Ovi Store fails its first-day stress test
As soon as Nokia’s IT teams — surely they have more than one — began rolling out the company’s answer to Apple’s iTunes store last night, Ovi began spewing error messages. Terence Eden posted screenshots such as this one.
Nokia’s official Ovi Blog posted a sort-of explanation that apologized for the problems, and claimed that some had been solved by adding more servers. Isn’t that the IT department’s answer to everything?
Nokia was smart to make its… Continue Reading
iPhone market share doubles to more than 10%
A fresh report from Gartner is good news for Apple, bad news for Nokia. iPhone sales keep climbing, even as the overall mobile phone market shrinks.
“Worldwide mobile phone sales totaled 269.1 million units in the first quarter of 2009,” says the report, “a 8.6 per cent decrease from the first quarter of 2008.”
Nokia is still number one by more than two to one over second-place Samsung, at 39% versus 14% market share. Among models dubbed… Continue Reading
Nokia to open Ovi Map Player platform to developers
Nokia said today that it’s sharing its mapping technology with developers who want to create their own personalized map applications.
This move represents a shift for Nokia from offering its own services to becoming a platform for third-party location-based services. By layering services on top of its phones, and copying Apple’s strategy of connecting services to e-commerce on the phones, Nokia hopes to steal some of the iPhone’s thunder.
The shared platform could generate a bunch of… Continue Reading
Roundup: Hulu eyes world domination, Schmidt busts antitrust talk, Nokia plots app store and more
Hulu closer to going global — The online video site backed by NBC Universal and Fox has signed a bevy of content deals with overseas television producers with an eye toward British and Bollywood programming.
OpenTable sets terms for IPO — The restaurant reservation service plans to sell 3 million shares for somewhere between $12 and $14 each to raise $16.1 million net from an IPO underwritten by Merrill Lynch & Co.
iPhones to point North — The next model… Continue Reading
Nokia aims to prove there is mobile demand beyond the iPhone
Anssi Vanjoki wants the technorati to know that there is more to mobile phones than the iPhone. The executive vice president of the new markets group with Nokia, the world’s biggest cell phone maker, gave a talk at the Web 2.0 Expo today in San Francisco in which he outlined the Finnish company’s plans to blanket the world in mobile applications. He showed off a bunch of research ideas we recently saw at Nokia Research… Continue Reading