Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK)’s Middle East vice-president says he believes that the Lumia, their new Windows Phone 8 handset, will help the company regain its lost share of the smartphone market. Tom Farrell says his region is one of Nokia’s top markets, so they decided to introduce their new smartphone with language support in Arabic.
This morning the manufacturer introduced two versions of the Lumia in the Middle East. Both versions will be available starting Nov. 25. According to Farrell, their pre-stocks stocks sold out in less than two weeks. The higher end Lumia, the 920, has a 1280 by 768 pixel resolution, which he says rivals the iPhone 5. The phone also features a number of improvements to hardware, including a new PureView camera, which can take in five times the light of cameras found in other smartphones without the use of the flash. Analysts also say that Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK)’s location-based apps and mapping sets the Lumia phones apart from other Windows 8 smartphones.
Today, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK)’s great expectations for the Lumia 920 are certainly founded, at least in China. Amazon China sold out of its stock of the Lumia 920T in about half an hour. At this point industry analysts are unsure whether the quick sales are due to the phone’s better specs, Microsoft’s recent Windows Phone 8 changes, or its lower price when compared to the iPhone 5 or the Samsung Galaxy S3.
China’s version of the new smartphone features the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset, an upgrade to the U.S. version of the same phone, which uses the S4 Plus chipset. This is because China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA standard is only compatible with the S4 Pro, not the S4 Plus. In addition, China’s version of the Lumia features the Adreno 320 GPU, which is more powerful than the Adreno 225 GPU found on the U.S. version of the device.
Will these phones be enough to save Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) in the long run? Only time will tell, but its undoubtedly true that the Lumia line has seen major improvement with the latest refresh.
