14 DAY TRIAL // Although Nokia's market share in United States is extremely small for quite some time now, it looks like the company decided to drop its Symbian business in North America.
In fact Nokia is determined to give up all its businesses in North America, especially that this is one of the few regions where the company was not that successful.
Nokia thinks that Symbian smartphones and S40 budget handsets could throttle down the WP7 smartphone sales, though in a very small measure.
Furthermore, the company also decided to deny U.S. the N9 MeeGo smartphone, perhaps for the same reasons.
In a recent interview for AllThingsD, Chris Weber, head of Nokia’s U.S. subsidiary, said:
“When we launch Windows Phones we will essentially be out of the Symbian business, the S40 business, etc. It will be Windows Phone and the accessories around that. The reality is if we are not successful with Windows Phone, it doesn’t matter what we do (elsewhere).”
Despite the fact that North America was not among Nokia's priorities, due to its inability to collaborate with local carriers, it looks like the Finnish handset make decided to make United States and Canada major markets for the upcoming Windows Phone 7 smartphones.
“We’ll develop for North America and make the phones globally available and applicable. In fact, evidence of that is that the first Windows Phones that will ship are being done by our group in San Diego,” added Webber.
Nokia's latest decisions are also based on the low sales of the Nokia Astound Symbian smartphone, which was launched in the market earlier this year via T-Mobile USA.
According to Webber the sales were disappointing and basically determined Nokia to drop any plans to launch any other Symbian smartphone in the country.
Obviously, these changes are part of a much larger plan meant to bring Nokia back among the most trusted brands in the world.