Nokia May Launch Windows Phone 8 Ahead of Competitors

Nokia may be getting an exclusive early launch of the next mobile operating system from Microsoft. ahead of other Windows Phone 7 manufacturers like Samsung, HTC and LG. Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO, made mention of this in a statement to the NY Times. He mentioned that Windows Phone 8 would be "Launched in September", which has a good head start on the tentative launch date at the beginning of November 2012.

It should be made clear that Elop didn't specifically state that Nokia would be launching WP8 devices in September prior to HTC, Samsung or LG devices, but with Microsoft mentioning it's launch dates for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 near the end of October, one has to wonder why Elop would state to the NY Times that we would see it in September. Clearly, he knows something that we don't.

After Nokia released its financials this week of an operating loss of over $1 Billion, a turnaround is needed. Having a solid month to sell Nokia WP8 devices on the market ahead of a new iPhone launch would be the right thing to do in gaining market share. It should also be noted, however, that Nokia did manage to sell 4 million devices this last quarter in 2012. Many of those devices being Windows Phone 7 devices in the Lumia family, accounts for the lion's share of total Windows Phone devices sold in that quarter as well. Microsoft may just be giving Nokia the advantage due to their recent rise in WP7 device sales.

Source - ZDNet