Nokia will shortly launch four Lumia smartphones in India, including its first dual SIM device Lumia 630 in May for around Rs 10,000, plus taxes, as the struggling handset maker strives to recover lost ground in a market considered among the world's fastest growing.
The Finnish company, who is expected to soon complete a deal to sell its devices business to Microsoft, will also start selling a low cost 4G smartphone Lumia 635, for $189 (around Rs 11,300), excluding taxes, in July, the company said in a release.
Taking a lead in the Indian and perhaps the global market, the Lumia 630 could well be the first dual-SIM phone in the Windows ecosystem, while the Lumia 635 could set a new benchmark as the first LTE-enabled smartphone in the sub Rs 15,000 price range.
Both the models of Lumia 630 support 3G SIM, built on latest Windows platform, and have 4.5 inch screen, 5 megapixel auto focus camera, 8 GB internal memory and support for up to 128 GB external storage. Lumia 635 is almost the same as Lumia 630, but will additionally support 4G, with mobile internet speeds of up to 100 megabit per second.
"The Nokia Lumia 630 is expected to roll out in May, beginning with Asia, India/Middle East, South America and Europe, at $159 (around Rs9,500) for the single-SIM variant, and $169 for the dual-sim variant before taxes and subsidies," the company said.
At a time when competitors are yet to solidify their strategies on LTE devices, and are still talking to chipset makers to create low-cost LTE phones and consequently an ecosystem around it, Nokia's move just might push it ahead of the curve as the devices go on sale, say analysts.
Dual-SIM Windows devices are likely to propel Nokia's overall smartphone sales which have been stagnant at 5% throughout 2013, as per IDC data, and spur demand for Lumia handsets since they are likely to be priced at very affordable levels, they add.
More pertinently, low-cost LTE devices from a trusted brand like Nokia may create the bedrock required by mobile phone companies including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular and Reliance Jio Infocomm, to launch voice services besides high-speed data services on LTE.
Bharti Airtel is the only company in India that has introduced voice services on 4G data in Bangalore, but it adopts the circuit-switch-fall-back (CSFB) technology where data runs on LTE but voice calls are carried on 3G or 2G networks.
The leading telecom companies have bought 1800 Mhz spectrum in many circles with the intention of offering 4G services using LTE technology, which offers high speed mobile internet, almost 10 times the speed of 3G.
While Bharti Airtel has launched 4G circles in some circles, Reliance Jio is expected to launch its own services by the end of 2014.