Nokia and Qualcomm today announced that they have entered into a new agreement covering various standards including GSM, EDGE, CDMA, WCDMA, HSDPA, OFDM, WiMax, LTE and other technologies. The agreement will result in settlement of all litigation between the companies, including the withdrawal by Nokia of its complaint to the European Commission.
Under the terms of the new 15 year agreement, Nokia has been granted a license under all Qualcomm's patents for use in Nokia's mobile devices and Nokia Siemens Networks infrastructure equipment. Further, Nokia has agreed not to use any of its patents directly against Qualcomm, enabling Qualcomm to integrate Nokia's technology into Qualcomm's chipsets. The financial structure of the settlement includes an up-front payment and on-going royalties payable to Qualcomm. Nokia has agreed to assign ownership of a number of patents to Qualcomm, including patents declared as essential to WCDMA, GSM and OFDMA. The specific terms are confidential.
"We believe that this agreement is positive for the industry, enabling the market to benefit from innovation and new technologies,"
said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia Corporation.
"The positive financial impact of this agreement is within Nokia's original expectations and fully reflects our leading intellectual property and market positions."
"I'm very pleased that we have come to this important agreement."
said Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm.
"The terms of the new license agreement, including the financial and other value provided to Qualcomm, reflect our strong intellectual property position across many current and future generation technologies. This agreement paves the way for enhanced opportunities between the companies in a number of areas."
Nokia, the world's leading mobile phone maker, reported on Thursday an 8.0-percent rise in underlying second-quarter net profit and its shares soared 9.0-percent despite a heavy hit for closing its Bochum plant in Germany.
Nokia also announced that its market share had risen to 40 percent.
Net profit for the April-June period, excluding one-off items, rose 8.0 percent to 1.37 billion euros (2.17 billion dollars) from the same quarter a year ago, while sales grew four percent to 13.15 billion euros, the company said in a statement.
Including one-off items net profit was down by 61 percent to 1.1 billion euros from 2.8 billion a year earlier. The non-recurring items included 259 million euros linked to the closure of the Bochum plant.
Operating profit in the second quarter, excluding one-offs, rose meanwhile by 39 percent to 1.93 billion euros.
In April-June the Finnish company sold 122 million mobile phones and its market share rose to 40 percent, compared to 38 percent a year ago, and up from 39 percent in the first quarter of 2008.
The group's biggest market is now the Asia-Pacific region, where it sold 36.4 million phones, a rise of 42.2 percent from a year ago and ahead of Europe where it sold 27.1 million handsets.
"Looking at the rest of the year, we are optimistic and have had good feedback about the broad range of new products we expect to sell in our device business,"
Nokia's chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said in the earnings statement.
Nokia said it expected its market share in the third quarter to stay on the same level as in April-June, while it continued to target higher market share for 2008.
Analyst Jari Honko from eQ Bank told AFP strong sales volumes indicated the global economic turmoil had not stopped people from buying new cell phones.
Nokia upgraded its forecast for the mobile device industry's annual sales growth and said it saw sales increasing more than 10 percent.
"Many research institutes have cut their forecasts, but Nokia is hiking its estimates. It is a positive signal on mobile phone markets,"
Pohjola Bank analyst Hannu Rauhala said.
The company saw its average selling price for handsets continue to fall. In April-June its phones on average sold for 74 euros each, down from 79 euros in the first quarter.
Analysts said the figure was a slight disappointment, which could partly be explained by the weakening dollar.
After the results were released, Nokia shares were up almost 9.0 percent to 17.17 euros on the Helsinki stock market, which was 3.8 percent higher.
Nokia has a couple of new offerings for the CDMA crowd and while neither will garner the same attention as a certain handset from Cupertino, they are still worth noting. After all, the CDMA guys in the crowd can't get their hands on that multi-touch wonder anyhow. First up, we have the Nokia 3608 on the left. This clamshell has dual displays with the main display measuring 2-inches across the diagonal. On the outside of the phone, you'll find a smaller display, touch-sensitive music controls, and a cool red flaring paintjob. Other features include a 1.3 megapixel camera, GPS receiver, FM radio, and microSD expansion. The other phone is the Nokia 8208. It's a dual slider with 3G, 3 megapixel cam, GPS, FM radio, and dedicated music controls that pop out of the top.
Howard Forums is easily home to the largest community of cell phone enthusiasts on the planet and its bold leader, Howard Chui, made an appearance on television yesterday to lend his expertise. In the clip, Howard goes through the pros and cons of three of this season's hottest new mobile phones. Today marks the official launch of the Apple iPhone 3G and everyone is pretty excited about that. Howard goes on to discuss the $10 unlimited data on the Samsung Instinct, before moving on to the slick business handheld known as the BlackBerry Bold. At the end of the day, Howard may like those phones, but he doesn't use any of them himself. He prefers the Nokia N95, largely because he can use it without looking at it. Not everyone needs a touchscreen, you know.
Gadget lovers worldwide are already camped out ahead of Friday's global rollout of the new model of Apple Inc.'s iPhone, which is also the first iPhone to go on sale in many countries.
Japan, is planning a countdown ceremony at its flagship downtown store. By late Thursday, a line of nearly 800 iPhone fans snaked around the block, with some sleeping on the streets to ensure they would be among the first customers.
The iPhone goes on sale there five hours earlier than other nationwide outlets, helping to kick off a global rollout in 22 nations. The first model, which launched in the United States a year ago, ended up being sold only in six countries.
Because of time differences, the new iPhones are going on sale first in New Zealand, then Australia, followed by Japan and Hong Kong. In the United States, phones will be available at 8 a.m. in each time zone.
Japan, though, is the tech-mad market that analysts like to watch. It is home to powerful electronics brands such as Sony Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.'s Panasonic, but its consumers are trend-chasers and have long adored Apple products such as the iPod.
Japan has about 107 million cell phones, or about one for every person. Many of the phones already work on 3G, or third-generation, wireless networks, offering the speedy Internet access that the new iPhone will also deliver. The old iPhone used a relatively slow cellular network combined with the ability to use fast Wi-Fi hotspots.
The iPhone's capabilities are less revolutionary here, where people have for years used the tech-heavy local phones for restaurant searches, e-mail, music downloads, reading digital novels and electronic shopping. They tend to shrug off foreign models, such as those of Nokia Corp.
The latest Japanese cell phones have two key features absent on the iPhone — digital TV broadcast reception and the "electronic wallet" for making payments at stores and vending machines equipped with special electronic readers.
But they don't have the iPhone's nifty touch screen or glamour image.
Another key difference is that the iPhone is designed to browse the Web in the much the same way computers do. The networks promoted by Japanese carriers, such as "i-mode" from NTT DoCoMo, are more closed than the Web. Such systems have allowed carriers to control services and charge fees.
Masayuki Otani, deputy chief of research at Maruwa Securities Co. in Tokyo, said the iPhone faces competition from emerging rivals, who offer mobile Internet devices in Japan, and the iPhone may attract a limited following.
"The iPhone is a fad,"
he said.
"There are lots of people who love it and jump at it, but there are those who are going to be less impressed."
Norikazu Sasaki, a 20-year-old student among those in line for the iPhone in Tokyo, was already won over.
"The iPhone is so user-friendly, more than any other mobile phone. It combines the best features of a PC with the best features of a phone,"
said Sasaki, who's been taking turns with two friends to save his spot in the line since 1 a.m. Wednesday.
"There isn't anything else like it,"
Sasaki said.
The iPhone has sparked similar enthusiasm in Australia.
In downtown Sydney, Brett Howell, 36, didn't mind fighting the chill of the Down Under winter for the distinction of being first in a line of about 40 at an Optus store Thursday.
"I wanted to make sure I got one,"
he said as he huddled on the sidewalk with a small blanket and a book.
"It's only 11 hours in total."
Ben Thomas, 27, had his own explanation for iPhone mania.
"It's a chick magnet,"
he said.
Apple plans to sell its 8-gigabyte iPhone for $199 in the United States and the 16-gigabyte version for $299. The company, based in Cupertino, Calif., says it has sold about 6 million iPhones since last year. It hopes to sell 10 million by the end of 2008.
The N95 isn't the only Nokia phone to feature a dual-sliding design. It turns out that the Chinese market will soon be treated to the dual-sliding Nokia 8208 music phone. It gets the glossy piano black finish that seems to be the trend for Nokia phones these days and it gets backed by a high-speed EVDO connection too. Like the Nokia N95 and N96, the Nokia 8208 slides one way to reveal a standard numeric keypad and then slides the other way to show off its multimedia controls. A full battery charge should provide enough life for up to 20 hours of music. A standard 3.5mm headphone jack is there too. Other features include GPS, 3 megapixel camera, 2.2-inch QVGA display, microSDHC expansion, FM radio, and micro-USB. The Nokia 8208 has not yet been formally announced, but if the 8208 is going to China, I would sincerely hope that they release a North American version soon too.
Nokia this week released a new candy-bar smartphone that packs many features that mobile workers and multimedia lovers may both like.
The Nokia 6220 classic is a quad-band GSM phone that's capable of using 3G networks for Internet browsing and e-mails. It has HSDPA connectivity, which provides customers with a top downlink speed of 3.6 Mbps. The phone is also capable of using EDGE data if a 3G network isn't available.
Mobile professionals will appreciate the phone's Microsoft Office applications, but the T9 input and lack of a QWERTY keyboard may not be appealing to some customers.
It features a 2.2-inch screen with a QVGA display capable of showing 16 million colors. It also has a built-in GPS receiver that can use cellular data for assisted GPS services.
There's a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, and auto-focus technology. There's also a Xenon flash, video recording up to 30 frames per second, and a secondary camera for video calls.
Nokia's phone is powered by Symbian 9.3, S60, and it packs 128 MB of user memory. This is expandable up to 8 GB via the microSD slot, and files can be transferred to a computer with the microUSB slot. It also has Bluetooth version 2.0, push-to-talk capability, and built-in hands-free features.
For multimedia, the 6220 classic has a music player capable of multiple codecs, as well as an integrated FM radio. The device also can play MPEG4 videos, and videos from the phone can be played on a television with an optional TV-out cable.
The handset measures 4.3 by 1.9 by 0.6 inches and weighs 3.2 ounces. The cell phone is available now in India for about $464, and Nokia has not announced if it will release the device in other markets.
Recognizing that no one style fits all, Nokia today unveiled a new range of products to let consumers express their personal styles on a number of levels ranging from stylish designs, to personalization through vibrantly hued exchangeable covers.
The first four devices to launch as part of the new Nokia Supernova range feature a mix of bold colors and of-the-moment designs, evoking the allure of the latest statement handbags or must-have sunglasses. Aimed at style conscious men and women who want to stay connected, the new range delivers exceptional mobile functionality alongside a variety of music and internet experiences.
"As we rely more heavily on mobile phones to stay connected, they increasingly know everything about us and have become a window into our worlds,"
said Jo Harlow, vice president, LIVE category, Nokia.
"With the Supernova range, we set out to give people the ability to set themselves apart in the same way that they would with a traditional statement accessory."
Xpress yourself
The new Nokia 7610, 7510 and 7310 Supernova devices give people an option to truly personalize their look by matching the style of their phone to their ever-changing moods with a choice of exchangeable Xpress-On covers in striking colors and glamorous surfaces.
Nokia 7610 Supernova
Featuring a slide design and smooth curves, the Nokia 7610 Supernova offers Xpress-On covers in a choice of a set of 'steel blue' and 'red' covers offset by a muted gray front surface, or 'bright lilac' and 'steel blue' contrasted against a pristine white front surface. The innovative Theme Colorizer feature lets people identify and capture any color and further tailor a look by applying captured colors to the phone's key illumination and wallpaper.
kuva
Additional features include a 3.2 megapixel camera with dual LED flash and 8x digital zoom, instant messaging and TV out for image sharing. With the Nokia 7610 Supernova, consumers can also enjoy and manage music with a dedicated music key, FM-radio, an MP3 player and access to Nokia Music Store* through the Nokia Music PC Client. The Nokia WidSets service gives access to enjoy and share content on favorite websites through the device.
The Nokia 7610 Supernova is available in the third quarter of 2008 with an estimated retail price of 225 EUR before taxes and subsidies.
Nokia 7510 Supernova
The Nokia 7510 Supernova boasts an iconic fold design with a push-to-open side key. Available with Xpress-On front and back covers in 'storm blue', 'red', 'emerald green' and 'espresso brown' the Nokia 7510 Supernova features magical light effects with a hidden-until-lit display and a reminder light. With outstanding mechanical quality, a soft feel and solid metal hinge, the phone features a 2 megapixel camera with NIPS, LED flash, 4x digital zoom, a 512MB microSD card**, a large 2.2 inch QVGA display and a new user friendly Nokia web browser for easy access to Nokia Search, Share on OVI and Flickr.
kuva
With the Nokia 7510 Supernova, consumers can enjoy and manage music with an FM Radio, an enhanced MP3 player, access to Nokia Music Store and Nokia Music PC Client. Additional features include a link to YouTube, access to Nokia Maps 1.2 to navigate with free mapping, routing and local search, support of A-GPS and the Nokia WidSets service.
The Nokia 7510 Supernova is available in the fourth quarter of 2008 with an estimated retail price of 180 EUR before taxes and subsidies.
Nokia 7310 Supernova
The slim and sleek Nokia 7310 Supernova includes Xpress-On covers etched with daring 3D textured designs available in 'steel blue' plus a second front and back cover in 'wasabi green' or 'candy pink'. A further five front and back cover options will be available for purchase in select markets in 'mushroom silver', 'plum jam', 'electric blue', 'yellow mellow' and 'espresso brown'.
kuva
Additional features include a 2 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom and TV out for image sharing, instant messaging and playing the preinstalled games on TV. An FM RDS radio and an MP3 music player complete the offering for style conscious individuals that want to enjoy their music anytime, anywhere.
The Nokia 7310 Supernova is available in the second quarter of 2008 with an estimated retail price of 155 EUR before taxes and subsidies.
Nokia 7210 Supernova
For trend watchers who want simplicity with style, the Nokia 7210 Supernova has a chic, slim design and is available in a choice of 'bubble gum pink' and 'vivid blue' in a gloss finish. With the Nokia 7210 Supernova, people can enjoy music sideloaded from a PC or purchased from Nokia Music Store, as well as manage music with the new Nokia Music PC client, which is available for download. With an SD memory card slot, favorite music and videos can be easily played and saved. A 2 megapixel camera and access to Flickr provide one click access to share photos.
kuva
The Nokia 7210 Supernova is available in the third quarter of 2008 with an estimated retail price of 120 EUR before taxes and subsidies.
