Nokia has announced the launch of a new phone in its Asha
series, the Asha 501. The phone is expected to go for $99 (15,600 naira) and
has a standby battery life of 48 days. The phone which is equipped with a
1200mAh battery enables it to have 17 hours of talk time and 56 hours of music
playback.
It is expected to come in red, blue, black, yellow, white
and green colours. It is equipped with a 3-inch multi-touch screen, Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth connectivity, and a 3.2 Mega Pixel camera.
It won’t support 3G or 4G data speeds, but it will come with
a Nokia Xpress Browser which is able to compress internet data by up to 90%.
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| Asha 501 |
Nokia is losing mobile phone market shares according to a
research conducted by Strategy Analytics. It was reported that Nokia’s market
share globally declined to 16.6% in Q1 this year from 21.9% in the first
quarter last year.
Nokia has been launching products aggressively to keep up
with the pace. Viral Oza, Marketing Director, Nokia India said: “There are two
parts to this where this comes from. As a brand, Nokia has believed that the
benefits of mobile technology should be accessible to all. We have democratized
every new development and experience; be it email, gaming, apps, or music.
“We have focused on every price line. Add to this, Nokia’s
global objective of connecting the next billion to the internet. The execution
of this strategy has started with the Asha range. Globally, we have 17 devices
and now the new family of Asha devices starts with 501.”
Popular app developers like Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn,
CNN, ESPN, Twitter, and The Weather Channel have shown interest in the Asha
phone.
Nokia is working with telecommunication giants Airtel and
Facebook to provide free data access for Facebook app and all mobile Facebook
web pages on Asha.
“The collaboration with Nokia is in line with our strategy
of enabling people to access data in Africa as we seek to bridge the digital
divide across the continent,” Airtel Africa’s Chief Marketing Officer, Andre
Beyers, said.
“The provision of free Facebook access is an excellent
proposition to the millions of Airtel consumers.”
It is expected to be available in the Asia Pacific, India,
the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Europe by June 2013.
It seems Tecno is not going scot-free just yet.
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