Nokia’s mega meeting in Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM – Nokia brought together its clientele from all over the world to Amsterdam on November 29-30 for its annual mobility conference and outlined its vision for the future of the industry.

The annual conference was held at the RAI Congress Centre in Amsterdam, the Netherlands with the participation of more than 2000 members including operators, developers, media, analysts, investors, IT vendors, content owners and service providers.

Nokia said that the Internet would become the key driving force in a market it expects to reach 4 billion global subscriptions during 2010. These comments were made in a speech by Nokia CEO and President, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

“Mobile communications is once again changing even faster than many of us have predicted, and we are still far away from this being a mature market.” he said.

“The Internet has transformed the way we live our lives and communicate with each other, and we expect it to play a key role in the next phase of Nokia’s growth. The next wave of the Internet will be to make it truly mobile, creating new ways for people to connect to others and find information from wherever they are. Nokia intends to be at the forefront of this new era and be the company that truly merges the Internet and mobility,” he added.

At the two-day event, Nokia said growth in the mobility industry was accelerating faster than predicted earlier, and that it now expected the industry to reach the milestone of 3 billion mobile subscriptions globally in 2007. Nokia also gave its new forecast of 4 billion global mobile subscriptions during 2010.

Music, mobile TV and navigation services will play a key role in driving this growth, both in advanced and emerging markets where in the latter increasing numbers of people are accessing the Internet for the first time on their mobile rather than on a PC.
Nokia also said that it expected more than half of the growth in mobile subscribers to come from emerging markets in the Asia Pacific region, including China and India. The company said it would continue to build its leadership position in these markets with a focus on both new and replacement or upgrade sales.

At the conference, Nokia also unveiled its latest mobile phone for the emerging markets including, the Nokia 2626, the company’s first entry level fashion phone.

The Nokia 2626 is targeted at style-conscious consumers, offering a mirrored color screen, a range of color covers and fashionable accessories, as well as an FM radio, GPRS and even email. "Mobilizing the Internet is a key focus for Nokia and I'm excited to see how a multimedia computer like the Nokia N80 Internet Edition can provide people with the convenience of Internet calling," said Ralph Eric Kunz, Vice President, Multimedia, at Nokia.

"Our collaboration with SIPphone makes Internet calling easy, plus our open VoIP platform allows for any SIP-based VoIP provider to incorporate their services in our device architecture, giving consumers the best of the Internet world."