Finnish vendor says it will use Maemo for 'mobile computers', Symbian for cheaper smartphones, and S40 interface for low-end.
Nokia Corp., the world's largest handset maker, Wednesday said Symbian would remain the key software platform for its smartphones, as it forecast a 10% rise in overall industry volumes next year following a period of sharp contraction.
In a sign of the growing importance of platforms to the industry, Nokia said Wednesday it had made significant improvements to the next version of the Symbian user interface, as it also gave its first industry projections for next year.
"In 2010, we will drive user experience improvements, and the progress we make will take the Symbian user interface to a new level," said Nokia Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, adding it had "reach and flexibility like no other platform."
He also said that a higher proportion of its smartphones--the one area of the handset market that has continued to grow during the recession--will have touch screens or full QWERTY keyboards compared with previously.
The Espoo, Finland-based company, hosting its capital markets day, also said it would focus on stabilizing the average selling price of its handsets to increase revenue.
"Going into 2010, the overall mobile devices market is stabilizing and it is growing more in the areas where Nokia has competitive advantages," Chief Financial Officer Timo Ihamuotila said.
Nokia said it will continue to focus on applications for its phones, targeting net sales from its Services unit of EUR2 billion or more in 2011 from an expected 300 million active users by the end of 2011.
To differentiate its products from rivals, Nokia has increasingly focused on applications such as navigation, its Comes With Music phones, and the Ovi online portal. Ovi means 'door' in Finnish.
However, it has faced intense competition from Apple Inc.'s iPhone and its App Store, touch screen phones from rivals such as South Korea's Samsung Electronics and a growing number of devices based on Google Inc.'s Android open-source operating system. Adding to the competition, Samsung is set to release its new bada operating platform Dec. 8.
Other rival offerings include Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile and proprietary systems from Blackberry maker Research in Motion Ltd. and Palm Inc.
Nokia's market share has remained relatively flat even as it has launched new phones such as the N97 smartphone and its open-source Maemo-based N900 device.
In 2008, recognizing the push toward open-source software would drive a more effective user experience as mobile applications become more widespread, Nokia bought out all the shares in Symbian it didn't own and set up the Symbian Foundation with a e number of other manufacturers and operators, aiming to unify several technologies into one platform and make it open-source.
Clarifying Nokia's platform lineup, Kallasvuo said it would use Maemo for high-end "mobile computers," Symbian for cheaper smartphones, and the S40 interface for the low-end of the market.
"Just one OS wouldn't be enough to cover the whole range in a satisfying way," but introducing more systems, such as Android, would hurt the benefit of scale. "This is a good balance," he said.
Meanwhile, Nokia Wednesday said it expects to maintain its share of the mobile device market in volume terms next year compared with 2009, but will increase revenue by stabilizing its average selling price, or ASP. Nokia said in October its ASP was EUR62, stable from the previous quarter but down from EUR72 in the third quarter of 2008.
Nokia had a leading market share of around 38% in volume terms in the third quarter.
The mobile phone industry has suffered from several quarters of falling sales as consumers have reined in spending in the wake of the economic downturn. Research firm Gartner Inc. said in October it expects the handset market to return to year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter 2009 as the recession comes to an end, and Nokia said Wednesday it expects volumes to rise 10% next year compared with this.
Nokia Siemens Networks, the network equipment joint venture with Germany's Siemens AG, is expected to gain market share in 2010 from 2009, while the infrastructure market is expected to be flat in euro terms from the previous year, Nokia said.
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