Nokia has announced that it will be releasing three Symbian smartphones with near field communication (NFC) technology in the hopes that it will help to lessen losses of its market share to Google’s Android.
Nokia is the largest manufacturer of mobile phones worldwide and, according to the chief of sales, Colin Giles, the company has noted that there is a “big requirement” for this type of product in Asia. Giles has also been named the interim head of Chinese business for the company. There, he is reshaping Nokia’s operations following a drop of 41 percent in its shipments to that nation last quarter.
The company is now attempting to grow its decade-old line of Symbian products in order to hold its sales as it transitions to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system for its higher end mobile devices.
The three new Symbian models are to be sold for a price starting at $260, and each are NFC enabled so that they will be capable of completing transactions with devices such as other smartphones nearby.
The competition, which uses the Android operating system, is already working to send the price of lower end smartphones below $150, in order to build the fastest growing part of the handset market even further.
According to Giles, at the same time that Nokia works its way over to the Windows Phone, which is their overall goal, they also intend to “continue to enhance the Symbian platform.” Updates to Symbian will continue to be unveiled by Nokia through 2012.
