" Is Nokia's Lumia series its Last Bet in Smartphone Market"

Finnish handset major Nokia today said it is eyeing the leadership position in the smartphone segment with the launch of its Lumia series in India today. Nokia  is  positioning Lumia as more than a smartphone which will help it to achieve leadership position in the global markets.

True to Nokia style, the Lumia comes with 8-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens.

The features that stood out included Microsoft's enterprise software, Xbox Live feature and NFC facility (near field communication), which one day may replace plastic money and help customers pay bills with their handsets. Two other preloaded apps that caught our attention include Nokia Drive and Nokia maps, but the functionality of these in the Indian market is not known.

While Android and iOS have similarities (especially after iOS 5 was released), Windows phoneuses a completely different interface. The home screen is a system of colourful 'live' tiles - the tiles get updated with new information periodically. For instance, a Gmail tile will continuously display the number of unread emails, a weather tile will display the current weather and the calendar tile will show upcoming appointments. Tap a tile and it opens to a new page with a fluid animation.

The company's overall global market share also fell - to 29 per cent, its lowest level since the late 1990s  facing intense competition from Android phones globally & Apple Iphones in North American & European markets.

Nokia is coming up with a multitude of strategies targeting across market segments in mobile segments.

Latest among them is its diversion from it smartphone cum multimedia mobile focused strategy  to target Dual phone SIM segments(latest target segment for Nokia).Nokia's absence from the dual-SIM segment for nearly two years allowed domestic players such as Micromax, Lava, Spice and Karbonn to make strong inroads into the mass market. It will leverage its experience of selling dual-SIM phones as it launches new products, including the Lumia. The results have been fruitful ,In the last quarter, It  went from no dual SIMs to selling 18 million such handsets.

The most robust  & promising strategy that Nokia is adopting now is its strategic alliance with Microsoft on Windows Phone ,Bing ( Microsoft ‘s search engine) ,Xbox Live ( Microsoft’s online gaming console service).

Windows Phone is becoming Nokia's principal smartphone strategy expected to supersede Nokia ‘s Symbian dominated smartphone by 2015. Microsoft's Bing and adCenter will provide search and ad services across Nokia devices, while Nokia will look to innovate "on top of the platform" with things like its traditional strength in imaging. Ovi Maps will be a core part of Microsoft's mapping services and will be integrated with Bing, while Nokia's content store will be integrated into Microsoft's Marketplace. Xbox Live and Office will also, as is to be expected, feature on the new MicroNkia mobile handsets.

Most of the above promised smartphone features have been featured & implemented into Nokia 800 priced at Rs 30,000 & Nokia 710 priced at Rs 19,999 to be launched in Indian markets next week.

But ,the most burning question before Nokia is that will its newly launched Lumia series mobile phones( Nokia- Microsoft ecosystem) solve its persisting market problems & restore its competitive edge with its traditional competitors.Well ,that depends on how markets react & appreciate these promising smartphones. Lets hope for the best to come out .