It’s Friday, so it must be time for another story about Nokia. Or LTE. This time it’s both, as it happens…
Reports are emerging that the smartphone maker is developing a high-end ‘data-intensive’ touchscreen-based device that will work on the LTE (long term evolution) network soon to be rolled out by Verizon Wireless across the US. It could be available next year.
Nothing’s been officially announced yet, but a deal would represent a significant strategic win for Nokia, which has a minuscule share of the US mobile handset market (it sold a measly 4.1 million devices in North America in Q408, down 19.6% y-o-y) and which has sought to improve its position there.
Nokia clearly hopes to emulate the success that Apple has enjoyed with its exclusive arrangement with AT&T Wireless to sell the iPhone to US customers. It must also envy HTC’s success in selling the first Android-based handsets in exclusive partnership with T-Mobile USA.
So, it seems very likely that any LTE device produced by Nokia for Verizon would be offered under a similarly exclusive arrangement.
As we’ve reported earlier, Verizon’s new LTE network is expected to be rolled out very quickly, with decent coverage of major US markets anticipated by the end of 2010. And Verizon plans to focus heavily on attracting business users to the LTE network, complementing the success it has had in recent months with the latest BlackBerrys from RIM in the prosumer segment.
Given Nokia’s lack of market share in what is one of the largest mobile user markets in the world (approximately 270 million at the end of 2008, according to my colleague Dr Windsor Holden, who’s currently hip-deep in conducting Juniper’s regular census of global mobile subscribers) and where there has emerged a healthy appetite for data-centric mobile services, this coming together of mobile powerhouses will prove most timely.
Furthermore, the US seems set to become an early adopter of commercial LTE services, with regional low-cost mobile operator MetroPCS also announcing plans to upgrade to LTE at the earliest opportunity, probably by late 2010.
Nokia is keen to get in early on LTE, now that it has abandoned WiMAX as a 4G mobile standard. Developing a device that would be one of the first commercial offerings on the market would certainly give it considerable clout in setting up supply deals with other nascent LTE operators in the near future. According to the GSA (Global Mobile Suppliers Association), 26 mobile network operators have now confirmed plans to upgrade with LTE; ten of these could be operational by the end of next year.
However, it is to be hoped that the new LTE device performs better from the off than the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic device which was launched in the US without the ability to properly connect to the 3G network of AT&T Wireless…
Tags: 3G, 4G, Android, Apple, AT&T Wireless, BlackBerry, Global Mobile Suppliers Association, GSA, HTC, iPhone, long term evolution, LTE, market share, MetroPCS, mobile data, mobile device, mobile handset, Nokia, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Research In Motion, RIM, smartphone, subscriber numbers, T-Mobile USA, touchscreen, United States, US, Verizon Wireless, wimax