Nokia starts marketing Blitz to win consumers to Lumia

LONDON | HELSINKI: Nokia Oyj Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop said he beat expectations by getting the company's first Microsoft Corp. smartphone on the shelves in time for Christmas. Winning consumers will require a marketing blitz.

The Lumia 800 phone, unveiled yesterday after more than eight months into its partnership with Microsoft's Windows Phone system, has a higher-resolution camera than Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy Nexus and a lower price tag than Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4S. The device will start selling in Europe next month for 420 euros ($584), excluding taxes and subsidies.

Elop, a former Microsoft executive, said yesterday that marketing spending on the Lumia series, including that by phone companies and retailers, will triple compared with prior product launches. Nokia lined up 31 phone companies including Vodafone Group Plc to lure back consumers who have dumped Nokia in favor of the iPhone and devices running Google Inc.'s Android.

"You are not going to be able to turn a corner of a street or look at a TV or go on the Web or anything without seeing the Nokia marketing campaign," said Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight in London. "They've kept themselves in the marketplace but this is the big, big bet. There's a lot of money on the table."

Nokia shares have tumbled 41 percent in Helsinki since Feb. 11, when Elop announced the partnership with his former employer and said he would phase out the Finnish company's 10-year-old Symbian operating system. Investors were skeptical Nokia would be able to deliver a competitive phone in time for the holiday season.

The Lumia launch comes less than two weeks after Apple started selling the iPhone 4S. Samsung announced the Galaxy Nexus last week. Windows Phone may be Elop's last chance to claw back share in the fast expanding smartphone market after the company lost more than 60 billion euros in market value since Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007. "When I think of Windows I think of computers, not phones," said Alice Reidy, a 27-year-old secondary school teacher from Ipswich, England, who has an iPhone 3GS.