Nokia to sell Vertu to private equity group EQT

Mobile handset firm Nokia on Thursday said it will sell its luxury mobile brand Vertu to private equity firm EQT VI for an undisclosed amount.

 The move is a part of Nokia's strategy to dispose of its non-core assets.

 "Nokia has agreed terms for EQT VI, part of the leading private equity group in Northern Europe, to acquire Vertu, the global leader in luxury mobile phones from Nokia," the company said in a statement.

 Nokia said it would retain a minority shareholding of 10 per cent in Vertu.

 However, the company has not disclosed financial details of the transaction but according to media reports the deal size could be around $250 million.

 "This is a logical next step in the evolution of Vertu as the world leader in luxury mobile products," Vertu President Perry Oosting said.

 "Since Vertu began in 1998, our business has grown every year, due to the efforts of our talented workforce and the unique products and services we offer to our customers. We believe that EQT VI will position Vertu to continue to grow and lead in our marketplace," Oosting added.

 Finnish mobile maker, which has been witnessing a tough competition from rivals Samsung and Apple Inc in the smartphone category, said the deal is expected to close during the second half of the year.EQT VI said Vertu fits well the firms investment strategy and plans to develop the brand as a standalone company.

 "With its strong brand, undisputed category leadership and attractive growth outlook, Vertu fits well with EQT VI's investment strategy.

 "EQT VI is excited about the opportunity to develop Vertu as a standalone company and plans to drive the development of the luxury mobile phone category through significant investments in retail expansion, marketing and product development," Investment Advisor to EQT VI Jan Stahlberg said.

 In a separate announcement, Nokia today announced slashing of 10,000 jobs worldwide by end of 2013. Besides, it also made changes in senior management following the resignation of three officials including Chief Marketing Officer Jerri DeVard.
Source:TOI

Nokia: Android phones have major patent issues

Nokia struck back at Google over its accusation that the cellphone maker was colluding with Microsoft to make money out of their patents. 

"Though we have not yet seen the complaint, Google's suggestion that Nokia and Microsoft are colluding on intellectual property rights is wrong," Nokia spokesman Mark Durrant said on Friday. 

"Both companies have their own intellectual property rights portfolios and strategies and operate independently." 

He also said that some Android devices had "significant (intellectual property) infringement issues" relating to Nokia's patents. 

Google, in a formal complaint to the European Commission, said Microsoft and Nokia had transferred 1,200 patents to MOSAID, a so-called "patent troll" which makes money by taking legal action over patent infringements. 

Nokia and Microsoft cooperate on smartphones that compete with Google's Android devices. The Finnish phone maker shifted from its own Symbian software in favor of Microsoft Windows in February 2011. 

Google's accusations highlight current cut-throat competition in the mobile phone business where companies, including Nokia, are fighting to assert intellectual property rights over wireless technologies. 

Nokia's patents have become valuable and stable assets for the company, particularly at a time when falling handset sales and a loss of market share threaten its future. Nokia has already sued Android device makers HTC and ViewSonic for infringing its patents and is expected to go after others. 

Nokia already earns 500 million euros ($618.22 million) a year from its patent royalties in key areas of mobile telephony and some analysts have said a more determined application of its patent rights could boost its income by hundreds more millions of euros a year. 

Microsoft said earlier that Google's complaint about antitrust in the smartphone industry was a "desperate tactic" from a company that controls more than 95 per cent of mobile search and advertising.

Source: TOI.IT

Samsung displaces Nokia from top spot in cellphone market

Nokia has been bumped off its 14-year top spot as the world's largest cellphone company by Samsung, according to a British research firm. Gartner said that Samsung Electronics Co sold 86.6 million cellphones in the first quarter, inching past Nokia Corp's sales of just over 83 million units.

Apple Inc sold 33 million iPhones, with a global market share of some 8 percent. Last month Boston-based Strategy Analytics said Samsung had overtaken struggling Nokia as the world's largest seller of cellphones by volume in the first quarter, grabbing a 25 percent global market share against Nokia's 22 percent. Both agencies have rated Nokia in third place in terms of smartphone sales behind Samsung and the iPhone.

Source: TOI.IT

Nokia's woes might call for Microsoft aid

Addressing Nokia Oyj employees in January 2011, chief executive Stephen Elop - at that point only four months into the job - dramatised the company's predicament by comparing it to standing on a burning platform. 

Nearly a year and a half on, and with Nokia's Lumia mobile phone range failing so far to revive sales, its position still looks frail. Its shares have lost 90 percent in five years and its debt is rated junk by two of the three major ratings agencies. 

Might Microsoft Corp, Elop's former employer and whose software Lumia is based on, have to step in to help Nokia out, seeing the Finnish company as a valuable point of entry into the cellphone market? Analysts have attributed Nokia's decline in large part to its late response to Apple Inc whoseiPhone redefined the smartphone market in 2007, and some see a marriage with Microsoft as possibly a last chance to turn the group around. 

For Microsoft the relationship is important, because Nokia was its first major break into the smartphone market after a decade of heavy investment. During that period other cellphone makers either chose to use their own software - as did Apple - or favoured Google Inc's Android. 

"If Nokia ends up in financial difficulties I believe the helping hand would be there," said Sami Sarkamies, an analyst at Nordea. 

Nokia and Microsoft declined to comment. 

MORE SUPPORT 

Microsoft is already paying Nokia $1 billion a year to use its software on Lumia smartphones. And investment bankers familiar with the technology sector said the support could extend well beyond that amount, if Nokia's problems intensify.  "I don't see Microsoft owning Nokia, but it would definitely provide financing to the tune of a couple of billion dollars," said one veteran technology banker. 

Any Microsoft support for Nokia would be more likely to take the form of an inter-company loan, or an equity stake, rather than a full takeover, a second banker said. 

Even though Microsoft has nearly $60 billion of cash on its balance sheet, the company has traditionally steered clear of the hardware business, because it does not want to compete with the manufacturers that use its software. 

Yet other priorities may override that consideration. 

At the same time, some bankers said they thought Nokia, which has a market value of 9.3 billion euros, was an unlikely target for other cellphone manufacturers because of its deep integration with Microsoft. 

"I don't see it as a target for private equity either. It is still too expensive and too volatile," said a third banker. "You would have to be prepared to catch a falling knife." 

With a full takeover of Nokia seeming unlikely, some bankers and analysts were equally sceptical about asset spin offs as a way for the company to raise some much-needed liquidity. 

OTHER ASSETS 

Nokia is in talks to sell its British luxury subsidiary Vertu, which makes some of the world's most expensive mobile phones, a source familiar with the company's strategy told Reuters previously. 

Yet Vertu is expected to generate only a few hundred million euros if it is sold to private equity firm Permira. And bankers said Goldman Sachs' mandate to sell the business did not extend to any other Nokia assets.  "Banks are pitching ideas to them like they always do, but I'm not aware of any other mandates to sell Nokia businesses or any wider mandate to advise the company on options," the first source said. 

Nokia's other assets that could be of interest to potential buyers include its intellectual property portfolio, which a fourth banker described as "the best in the industry". 

Yet Elop told the company's shareholders' meeting on May 3 he was not planning any wider patent sales. He also said he saw the location and mapping business, built on the $8.1 billion acquisition of U.S. firm Navteq, as a core asset the firm would aim to keep, despite some expectations it could be sold. 

The fourth banker said Microsoft was likely to urge Nokia not to put its patents on the block in any case, because it would not want them to fall into the hands of Google. 

The only other asset of any size that Nokia could potentially sell would be its half of Nokia Siemens Networks. 

Yet its parent companies Nokia and Siemens tried to sell NSN last year to private equity, a process that collapsed over price, and there seems no obvious reason why they would be more successful now. 

For Elop, there remain painful decisions to secure his legacy as head of what once ranked as one of Europe's biggest technology success stories. 

"Elop was not hired as a boss for a burning platform," said John Strand, founder and CEO of Danish consultancy Strand Consult. "He put the platform on fire."

Via:timesof india.indiatimes

New Model dual-SIM launched by Nokia, Asha 202

 Nokia has launched its dual-SIM touch-and-type phone Nokia Asha 202. Sporting a 2.4-inch touch screen, the device comes with a 2-megapixel camera, music player, FM radio, Bluetooth and has expandable memory of up to 32GB.

The phone also comes with the chat client Nimbuzz for users to stay connected on-the-go. The dual-SIM Easy Swap technology in Asha 202 allows users to personalise their phones. With a dedicated SIM manager, it allows users to save information of up to five SIM cards.

Nokia Asha 202 is available in four colours: black and gold, silver white, dark grey and dark red. The phone is priced at Rs 4,149 IN approximately.

Nokia Asha 202 will be the first Series 40 device to offer exclusive EA games in India. As a 60-day promotion at Nokia Store, the consumers can enjoy 40 EA game pack worth Rs 4000 absolutely free. This includes popular and classic titles like Tetris, Need for Speed, The Run and Bejeweled.

Nokia has also tied up with telecom operators like Vodafone, Airtel, Aircel, Reliance and TATA Docomo to offer 100MB of free data for each SIM per month for a period of six months.

Specifications:

Dimensions

Height : 114.8  mm

Width : 49.8  mm

Thickness : 13.9  mm

Weight : 90  g

Volume : 91.5  cc

Display and User Interface

Touch Screen : Resistive  

Display size : 2.4  ''

Screen height : 320  pixels

Screen width : 240  pixels

Display features

Resistive touch screen, with ITU-T keypad

QVGA display

Connectivity

Connectors

• 3.5 mm AV connector
• 2.0 mm Charger Connector

Local connectivity

• Micro USB for charging, audio, and data
• Nokia AV 3.5mm

Memory

Total user memory

Up to 10mb internal memory, expandable with micro-SD card up to 32 GB  

Data Network

Data bearers

• 2G GPRS
• 2G EGPRS
• EDGE

Extra feature

• Nokia Mail
• FOTA Firmware over the Air
• Wallpaper
• Nokia Life
• Themes
• Nokia Maps (available as a free download)
• Dual SIM
• World Clock
• Nokia Store

Operating Frequency

Operating band

• GSM 850
• GSM 900
• GSM 1800
• GSM 1900

Power Management

Battery : BL-5C 1020 mAh  

Power management : 2.0mm Charger Connector  

Maximum 2G talk time : 5  h

Maximum GSM standby time : 400  h

Maximum music playback time : 25  h

Maximum video playback time : 6.5  h

Other Applications

Software updates

FOTA Firmware over the Air  

Features (Personal information Management)

• Alarm clock
• Calculator
• Calendar
• Notes
• To-do list
• Stopwatch

Operating System

S40 Asha 

Email and Messaging

Email solution

• Windows Live/Hotmail
• Yahoo Mail
• Gmail

Email protocol

• IMAP4
• POP3
• SMTP

Email features

Multiple email accounts  

Messaging features

• SMS
• MMS
• List of recently used numbers
• List of recently used numbers
• Speed dialling

Supported IM services

• Windows Live Messenger
• Yahoo! Messenger
• Google Talk
• Nokia Messaging IM

Browser

Nokia Browser  

Main camera

Primary camera sensor size

2 megapixels  

Graphics

Graphics format

• BMP
• WBMP
• PNG
• JPEG

Music

Music player

Yes

Music format

Audio format

• AAC
• AAC+
• AMR-NB
• AMR-WB
• MP3
• MP4
• WAV
• WMA

Radio

Radio features

• Stereo FM radio
• FM Recording

Gaming features

Java games 

Main video camera

Video Recording

QVGA (320x240), > 10 fps  

Video clip length

Maximum clip length only restricted by available free memory  

Main video camera features

Video feature

Video recorder  

Camera video format

• 3GPP formats (H.263)
• WMV

Video format

• H.264/AVC
• MPEG-4
• WMV
• 3GPP formats (H.263)

Sales Package

• Nokia Charger AC-11
• Nokia Battery BL-5C 1020 mAh
• Nokia Stereo Headset WH-102
• Quick Guide, User Guide and Product information leaflet