Hyderabad: With consumers of all income groups rooting for smartphones, Nokia plans to launch its most affordable smartphone in the Asha series, in an attempt to resurrect its declining market share.
“The new Nokia Asha 500 will launched later in December and is set to be the lowest priced affordable smartphone to offer WhatsApp and many other features, which are available only in high-end phones,” said T.S. Sridhar, regional director, south, Nokia India, on Tuesday.
The handsets worth less than Rs 5,000 make up nearly 85 per cent of the Indian handset market in terms of volume.
Nokia, however, lost its ground in this segment to Indian handset makers, who import Chinese mobiles under their brand name. According to IDC, Nokia had a 14.7 per cent market share in the Indian mobile phone market in Q3, 2013, putting it in second place behind Samsung that had a market share of 15.3 per cent.
Sridhar, who was in Hyderabad to launch Nokia Asha 502 and 503, said the newly launched handsets will have the aspirational value at affordable price. He, however, added that Nokia Lumia is doing well in the highend segment and its Windows OS has emerged as the second most preferred mobile software in India.
