14 DAY TRIAL // According to the latest news on the Web, the Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia might be preparing the launch of several new 3G and 3.5G devices in 2009. Although the forecasts for the mobile market this year are not as bright as one might expect, the company is said to be planning handsets that will feature multitouch and multimedia functionality.
The phone maker is reported to have announced its chip suppliers that it will increase its orders in March, which might point towards the fact that it could unveil new devices during the second quarter of the year, as the demand for its phones might have increased.
The same news states that the Finnish manufacturer will place orders mainly to Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Synaptics. On the other hand, no information on the kind of devices that would use the technology is available at the moment, especially when it comes to multitouch capabilities, a feature that the upcoming Nokia N97 flagship is not expected to include.
On the other hand, the company already announced that its N97 and 5800 ‘Tube’ XpressMusic devices would include touchscreen capabilities, and that they would be followed by other similar devices, but gave no further details on the functionality of the handsets.
As many of you already know, Nokia has announced that it registered a 70 percent profit drop in the fourth quarter of last year, and also placed a rather pessimistic forecast for the first quarter of 2009. Given this state of facts the new models are expected to burst mainly in the second quarter of this year.
At the same time, the news reports point towards a possible recovery in the handset market, mainly due to recent demand increases in different geographies. The holiday shopping during the Chinese New Year led to the clearing of the inventory in China, while the overall sales are also expected to grow compared to December, due to increased demand in some emerging markets.