New Nokia Smartphone To Hit Shelves In France in November - Source

   By Sam Schechner, Leos Rousek and Sven Grundberg 
 

STOCKHOLM--Nokia Corp.'s (NOK) new flagship smartphone will be on sale in France in two months' time, a person familiar with the situation said Friday.

Vivendi SA's (VIV.FR) SFR, the second-largest mobile operator in the country, will offer the Lumia 920 in November, according to a person close to the company.

Telecom Italia said it would sell the new Nokia phone in Italy but couldn't specify when. Other large European mobile operators declined to comment.

Nokia's launch of the new phones in New York on Wednesday was highly anticipated, but a lack of detailed information about the sales and marketing plan disappointed investors. A person familiar with Nokia's plans said that the Finnish company will start to make announcements regarding pricing and availability next week.

Some smaller European countries said they are not expecting the phone until early next year.

A spokesperson for the Czech Republic's biggest operator Telefonica Czech AS (BAATELEC.CZ) said that due to Nokia's shipment availability for the Czech market, it won't be able to offer the new smartphones until the first quarter of next year.

T-Mobile Czech Republic, the country's number two mobile operator said the launch of Nokia's new Lumia smart phones remained an open question partly due to pricing concerns and availability.

"Both new Lumias are in fact very expensive," T-Mobile Czech spokeswoman Martina Kemrova said "For now it's still an open question whether we begin selling Lumia 820 or 830 in the first quarter of 2013, and we'll decide based on the overall success of the Windows Phone 8 platform."

Nokia's two new devices, the Lumia 920 and the mid-tier Lumia 820, both run an upgraded version of Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Windows Phone 8 smartphone operating system.

At 1454 GMT the shares were trading up 6.5% at EUR2.06. The stock is down 8.5% over the last week.

Write to Sven Grundberg at [e-mail]

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