US ban on Huawei presents Nokia, Ericsson with a huge opportunity

The Chinese supplier’s supremacy is being challenged by its Nordic rivals

In the course of recent decades, China’s Huawei Technologies Co. has come to rule the worldwide telecom hardware showcase, winning contracts with a blend of refined innovation and alluring costs. Its ascent crushed Europe’s Nokia Oyj and Ericsson AB, which reacted by eliminating positions and making acquisitions. Presently, with Huawei at the focal point of a US-China exchange war, the tide is changing.

Nokia and Ericsson—savage opponents themselves—have as of late wrested outstanding long haul bargains from Huawei to manufacture 5G remote systems, to empower everything from self-sufficient autos to robot medical procedure. Investigators state more could come their way as Huawei ponders a U.S. fare restriction and limitations from different governments worried that its gear could empower Chinese secret activities.

“Huawei will, for a long time to come, face a more extensive haze of doubt,” said John Butler, an investigator at Bloomberg Intelligence in New York. “Nokia and Ericsson are very much situated to profit.” In May, the European organizations both won 5G contracts from SoftBank Group Corp’s. Japanese telecom unit, supplanting Huawei and Chinese companion ZTE Corp. Ericsson marked a comparative settlement in March with Denmark’s greatest telephone organization, TDC A/S, which had worked with Huawei since 2013 to modernize and deal with its system.

Different bearers, expecting government controls on Huawei, have begun expelling its gear from delicate pieces of their frameworks. BT Group Plc is removing Huawei from its system center, and Vodafone Group Plc has suspended center gear buys from Huawei for its European systems. Deutsche Telekom AG, which has Huawei all through its 4G framework, is reconsidering its buying procedure.

As many telephone organizations—incorporating those in Canada, Germany and France—plan to pick 5G providers in the coming months,Cisco Systems Inc. andSamsung Electronics Co. are likewise competing for arrangements. Be that as it may, the key recipients of Huawei’s challenges are probably going to be the two Europeans, which contend straightforwardly with the Chinese organization in providing radio-get to arrange gear.

HMD Global to adopt notch screen, resurrect Xseries with Nokia X6

HMD Global, the Finnish mobile phone manufacturer behind Nokia-branded devices, might bring back the old Nokia X-series smartphones. The first smartphone in the series will purportedly be called the Nokia X6. And the official images shared by the company on the Chinese social media platform Weibo shows that the phone will sport a notchbased screen, a first for Nokia smartphones.Those who have seen the original Nokia Xseries devices would agree that those phones offered a value-for-money proposition. The series had its spot fixed between the premium Nokia N-series and the budget Nokia Cseries, therefore it took cues from both. The X-series devices usually had a distinct design language, unconventional mostly, and featured a colourful outlook. The Nokia X7-00 with razor cut metallic design and unconventional pseudo speaker grilles on each corners was the last device of the X-series that came out.Nokia X6 specifications and features-Speaking of the purported Nokia X6, the Android-based smartphone is expected to sport a notch-based 5.8-inch screen with a 19:9 aspect ratio on the front.

The phone is expected to use either a MediaTek P60 system-on-chip (SoC) or a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor. The earlier leak also hinted that the phone would sport dual camera set-up on the rear. However, just like original Nokia X-series, it may not feature Carl Zeiss lenses.Nokia X6 launch While nothing is officially confirmed about the said Nokia X6, a purported media invite shared on Weibo hints at a possible China launch on May 16. The said invite shows a phone’s notch-based screen cut-out with a launch date marked on it. However, the source of the invite could not be verified yet.Recent Nokia launches Nokia 8 Sirocco-HMD Global on April 4 launched the Nokia 8 Sirocco in India. Priced at Rs 49,999, the Nokia 8 will go on sale starting April 30 and be available only in black colour. The phone would go on sale either through Nokia phones' official portal or home-grown e-commerce portal Flipkart. The phone would also be available at select retail outlets like Sangeetha, Poorvika, Big C, Croma and Reliance Digital.

The Nokia 8 Sirocco is an unconventional flagship smartphone with a premium design, top-tier innards, wireless charging, water-dust resistance and the Android One promise of guaranteed future OS updates. The phone’s camera might not impress everyone, especially those who like nightlife photography. But the three omni-directional Nokia OZO microphones compensate for that by allowing crisp sound recording, even during live jamming sessions.Nokia 7 Plus-The Nokia 7 Plus is a mid-range premium smartphone with modern looks and smooth performance. It does not have top-tier innards, but it manages to run without any lag or jitters, even during demanding tasks. At Rs 25,999, the phone is an all-rounder with powerful battery, fast charge support, good screen and the Android One update promise.Nokia 6 (2018)-Built on the blueprint of the original Nokia 6, the new Nokia 6 (2018) packs more power and performance. The phone is powered by Qualcomm 630 processor, coupled with 32GB internal storage and 3GB RAM. The phone is powered by a 3,000 mAh battery, which supports fast charge technology. According to company’s claim, the fast charger takes 30 minutes to charge over 50 per cent battery. The phone boasts a 16MP primary camera and 8MP selfie camera.

HMD Global India outlook Since HMD Global entered the handset business in 2016, it has sold over 70 million devices. India, being one of the fastest growing mobile phone markets globally, is among the company’s top three global markets as the country shows better potential than other European markets.After making a mark in the feature phone market within a year, HMD is now eyeing the top spot. The Finnish firm wants to clinch a significant share of the smartphone market that is currently dominated by Asian manufacturers.Pekka Rentala, chief marketing officer of HMD, has set the standards of the local market as a global benchmark. Unlike earlier, when Nokia used to dominate the market, its market share is less than 10 per cent. The market has over 200 handset brands.Rentala wants to rely on the nimbleness of a start-up, rather than taking the conventional approach. He wants to focus on strengthening distribution.While, Nokia has an established e-commerce channel in Europe, penetrating offline and online distribution channels in India is crucial.

However, the emergence of brands such as Vivo and Oppo had made the job difficult, he added. Instead of penetrating the market with high margins and discounts, Nokia will offer products that are value for money.

Nokia is KKR team's principal sponsor in IPL 2018 Nokia and the Shah Rukh Khanowned Kolkata Knoght Riders (KKR) franchise of Indian Premier League (IPL) have a history together. The Finnish mobile phone brand had been the principal sponsor of KKR from 2008 until 2014. However, after a gap of three years, HMD Global revived the association for two years starting with the present season (IPL 2018).

ARTICLE SOURCE- BUSINESS STANDARD.

Nokia 7 Plus first impressions: Affordable performer, challenger to mighty

The smartphone's first impressions suggest the Nokia 7 Plus is a capable performer that feels light in hand and looks plush from all sides

Technology: In time, when most smartphone makers are adopting iPhone X-inspired notch screen, Nokia seems to be catching up on yesteryear’s trend by launching the Nokia 7 Plus – the first smartphone with the modern 18:9 screen from the stable of HMD Global, the Finnish company behind the Nokia-branded phones.

While there is no dearth of ultra-wide aspect ratio screen devices, the Nokia 7 Plus seems to be the most polished version, at least in the Nokia portfolio. In terms of look and feel, the device's build quality seems solid, thanks to the aluminium back, copper-layered chassis and Gorilla Glass on the front.

Despite having a tall instance, the device feels comfortable in hand and is easy to operate. The ceramic-type coating on the back adds to the overall aesthetics while making it less prone to accidental falls.

Nokia 7 Plus Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 system-on-chip (SoC), coupled with 64 GB of internal storage and 4 GB of RAM, the phone seems to work smoothly and shows no signs of lag anywhere. Even the heavy processor-intensive apps such as graphic-intensive games -- Need for Speed No Limits and Asphalt Nitro – the phone manages to perform without heating up or slowing down the performance.

The phone boots Android 8.0 Oreo out-of-the-box and supports Google Android One initiative, assuring timely updates and vanilla Android experience with no bloatware pre-installed.

Coming to the imaging part, the phone is aimed at content creators, so it boasts Nokia’s dual sight camera feature, which allows using the front camera and back camera simultaneously to capture both the ends. Talking about camera, the phone boasts dual rear-cameras with ZEISS Optics. The dual sensors use an ultra-sensitive 12-megapixel wide-angle lens and a 13MP telephoto lens that supports 2x optical zoom.

Read more: Nokia 7 plus 

Nokia 3310 makes a comeback with 22 hours of battery life, dual sim

Price in India, other countries can fluctuate a little bit because of taxation and cost factors

Finnish mobile device player Nokia is in reboot mode as it gets ready to bring to India its 17-year-old iconic Nokia 3310 handset for about Rs 3,500, along with its Android smartphones, next quarter.

"All the products that we have announced Nokia 3310, Nokia 6, Nokia 5 and Nokia 3 will be available in the second quarter of this year in India. Average global selling price for Nokia 3310 is 49 euros," HMD Global Oy Chief Marketing Officer Pekka Rantala said.

HMD Global has licence to design and sell Nokia branded phones globally as well as use technologies developed by Nokia Corporation.

"Now, we are celebrating the new era of Nokia brand that is the reason we are with HMD Global. Let me also be very clear that we would not license the Nokia brand to just anybody. It means too much to us. We chose carefully. We looked at the market. We looked at Google to be our brand licensing partner which could do this for a long time," Nokia President and CEO Rajeev Suri said.

HMD Global also unveiled Nokia 5 and Nokia 3 smartphones for 189 euros and 139 euros built on Google's Android platform. The company has already been selling Nokia 6 in China. One model of Nokia 6 with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage will be retailed at around 229 euros and the other one with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB internal memory with support for external memory card will be available for around 299 euros.

Nokia 6 has 5.5-inch screen size, 8 MP front camera and 16 MP rear camera.

Nokia 3 and 5 have 2 GB RAM, 16 GB internal storage and support memory card of up to 128 GB.

The Nokia 3 smartphone sports 5-inch screen size, 8 megapixel camera in the front and back. Nokia 5 has a 5.2-inch screen, 8 MP front and 13 MP back cameras.

Rantala said the price in India and other countries can fluctuate a little bit because of taxation and other cost factors associated with individual countries.

Nokia 3310, known for its robustness, was the most widely used feature phone globally in 2000-05. It is estimated to have sold 126 million units globally when there were only a few countries with mobile networks.

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