Nokia World 2011 has come to an end and what an amazing couple of days it has been. We've seen the launch of the Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710 Windows Phone devices, while four Nokia Asha phones blur the line between feature phone and smartphone. Here we look at 10 things we learnt.
In his keynote speech, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop spoke a lot about how the Nokia eco-system works, revealing our first batch of facts. For example, did you know that Nokia sold 18 million dual-SIM products in Q3 of 2011? This is creating a halo effect around other products, giving Nokia a stronger presence in markets world wide.
Check out the Nokia Asha unveiling
Another technology that is causing a stir is NFC (Near Field Communications). Did you know that Nokia is the leader in open NFC – it’s now on 7 devices and this trend looks set to continue as it will be a standard addition in all future Symbian devices.
When it came time to announce the four Nokia Asha feature phones, we got to find out a little about the idea behind the name change. Nokia Asha means ‘hope’ from the Hindi and is a new brand name for the S40 line.
The Asha line of feature phones reach out to the Next Billion, which for many users will be the first experience of the internet. To this end, Nokia currently makes 12 phones a second, which equates to one million feature phones a day.
Carrying on this theme was Blanca Juti, Vice president of Mobile Phone Marketing, who pointed out that, for example, for 23 percent of Nokia X2-01 users in Pakistan, this device is the first time they have accessed the internet, which is quite a staggering figure when you think about it.
The Series 40 feature phones may be an entry-level into the world of feature phones and smartphones but they play an important role for Nokia and users alike. For example, 30 per cent of Nokia Store apps are downloaded by Series 40 devices, showing the passion and versatility of a platform seen as entry-level.
To prove the point on the growing popularity of the Series 40 platform, we were told that Angry Birds for Series 40 has now been added to the roster, which brings the world most addicitive game to a whole new audience.
Another app that is proving big on Series 40 is What'sApp, which came to Series 40 a couple of months ago with little or no fanfare, or so we were told, and already 1 million people have signed up to it, and making the most of the .
Finally, the thing we were left with was that Nokia is helping blur the line between phone and smartphones on an almost daily basis. With all the features that are being increasingly packed into ever more affordable handsets, it seems Nokia is determined to make The Next Billion devices as feature-rich as today's smartphones.
What do you think, what were you highlights from Nokia World 2011? Let us know in the Comments below.