Nokia unveiled its $99 Nokia Asha 501 smartphone on Thursday, targeting both emerging markets in South America, Africa and Asia and industry competitors, like Samsung and Google, looking to corner those markets.
Once the world's largest phone maker according to The Wall Street Journal, Nokia has steadily lost its market share worldwide, especially in the high-end smartphone market. That's why Chief Executive Stephen Elop said Nokia will be targeting emerging markets looking for cheap smartphones — a potential $40 billion market.
Nokia has its competition cut out: Samsung's low-end smartphone products, with some phones retailing as low as $110, has captured 22 percent of India's market, where the Asha 501 was publicly announced, according to The Wall Street Journal. India's native Micromax Informatics Ltd., too, has also been fighting for emerging markets, selling some of its phones for as little as $65. Noticeably absent from emerging markets, however, is Apple.
Apple hasn't announced a low-end phone for emerging markets, but, according to a report by Reuters, suppliers are preparing to craft a low-end phone for the high-end phone maker. Apple's apparent building up of its Chinese workforce at one supplier by 40 percent for the second half of 2013 is fueling speculation around the secretive company's plans for a low-end phone.
But Nokia is promoting its Asha software platform to make up for ground lost to its competitors. Nokia designed the Asha — Hindi for the word "hope" — platform to ease application development for Nokia phones, and is the result of Nokia's 2012 Smarterphone acquisition.
The Nokia Asha 501 features a 3-inch 320 x 240 QVGA screen with hardened glass, a 3.2-megapixel camera capable of capturing video, dual SIM slots, a microUSB port and a compact 3.9 x 2.28 x 0.47 frame. The phone weighs 3.45 ounces and, according to Nokia, can operate for 17 hours of talking, with 48 hours of standby.
The phone lacks 3G connectivity, opting to send and receive data over Wi-Fi and 2G networks, which, according to Elop, is relevant to 80 percent of the world. The 501 also comes with a 4GB card for its microSD port, though it can support up to 32GB cards.
The Nokia Asha 501 will ship to 60 carriers in 90 countries in June.
