Nokia Junk Tittles-Tattle the Delays of new handset, N8 Launch in Pakistan Soon

Nokia is anxious to remove any glitches in its new phone to avoid the poor reviews and weak sales that followed the launch of its previous flagship device the N97, last year. But the group now faces a race to get the N8 to market in time for the crucial pre-Christmas selling season.
Nokia has warned customers of another delay to its new flagship smartphone but the Finnish group denied it marked a fresh setback in efforts to reclaim lost ground from Apple and other smartphone groups.
The world’s biggest mobile phonemaker said it had decided to hold back deliveries of the N8 for a few weeks to allow time for final adjustments, missing its target to start getting the device to customers by the end of September.
But Nokia insisted on Tuesday that it would still begin shipping the product this month, in line with previous guidance – even if it will reach customers until October.
The announcement highlighted the challenges facing Nokia in the crucial smartphone market on the day that Stephen Elop is due to formally take over as chief executive.
Mr Elop was hired from Microsoft this month to replace Olli-Pekka Kallsvuo in a bid to sharpen Nokia’s response to competition from the Apple iPhone and a range of devices based on Google’s Android software.
Tuesday’s N8 delay threatened to reinforce criticism that Nokia has been too slow to develop new products at a time when the market is shifting rapidly towards sophisticated, internet-enabled phones that double as minicomputers.

The N8 – the first model based on a new generation of Nokia’s Symbian software – was originally scheduled to start shipping by June but the target was later pushed back to September.

“We still expect to start the shipments by the end of the third quarter,” Nokia said on its official blog, while acknowledging that customers would receive the product later than previously expected.
“As it can take time from the beginning of shipment to arriving at their doorstep, in full transparency, we have advised our pre-order customers that they should expect their new Nokia N8 in October.”
Unveiling its new device at the group’s annual trade fair in London last week, Nokia said it was expecting “big things” from the N8 and reported strong demand from operators and record online pre-orders.
The device, which comes with a 12-megapixel camera and high-definition video streaming, will be pitted against a growing range of devices from rivals such as Motorola, SonyEricsson and HTC that use Google’s Android software.
A full-scale fightback against the more expensive Apple iPhone is not expected until next year when Nokia plans to make another upgrade to its Symbian software and launch its new MeeGo operating system, co-developed with Intel.
Nokia has by far the biggest share of the overall smartphone market but has struggled to compete with Apple and others, such as Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, at the top end, where profits are greatest. This has led to a sharp decline in Nokia’s margins and mounting unrest among investors. The stock was down 1.78 per cent at €7.73 on Tuesday morning, down by nearly a third over the past six months.
In Helsinki NOKIA said on Tuesday that reports of a delay in the launch of its new N8 mobile phone, seen as a key product needed to boost the company’s fortunes, are inaccurate.
http://www.youtube.com/v/0rNPoQoiQfA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1

‘We have said we expect to ship the N8 by the end of the third quarter and that hasn’t changed,’ Nokia spokesman Doug Dawson told AFP.
He said that the misunderstanding has arisen from the fact that Nokia’s marketing department informed customers who pre-ordered the phone that they should expect them in October.
He added that a number of factors affect delivery, such as shipping and customs arrangements, but that there have been no developments within the company to delay the N8’s appearance in stores.
The N8 is considered to be a crucial development in Nokia’s product line as it is a competitor to the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android-platform smart-phones that have been chipping away at the company’s market share.