Nokia handsets with chips from new suppliers yet to be launched

Despite announcing in August of 2007 it would diversify its chip procurement among several leading chipmakers, Nokia is unlikely to release new handsets in 2008 using chips from new suppliers as expected, according to industry sources. Citing relatively slow component procurement by Nokia, industry players generally believe that Nokia handsets built on chips from new chip suppliers will hit the shelves in 2009 at the earliest.

For handsets slated to be launched in the first half of 2008, none of them will use chips from Broadcom, Infineon Technologies nor STMicroelectronics, the sources noted. Whether or not any handsets built using chips supplied from these vendors will be shipped in 2008 remains uncertain, they added.

Stressing a strict component strategy at Nokia, industry players said it usually takes 1-2 years for the adoption process, given that Nokia has to examine the solutions in terms of technology, service and price competitiveness. Despite market speculations that system-on-chip (SoC) solutions from both Infineon and Texas Instruments (TI) have been validated by Nokia, and that NXP Semiconductors is also having its solutions tested by Nokia, no handset from Nokia is built on solutions from these vendors yet.


digitimes