Nokia aims for a comeback

Nokia replaced its chief executive officer with with Stephen Elop, who was an executive at Microsoft [EPA]

Nokia has unveiled its latest range of smartphones following a series of major in the reshuffles at its board level, as the Finnish mobile phone maker struggles with declining profits.

The introduction of the three new smartphones – the C6, C7 and E7 – come a day after Anssi Vanjoki, the head of Nokia’s mobile solutions business, announced that he will resign from the company.

“Today our fight back to smartphone leadership shifts into high gear,” Niklas Savander, the executive vice-president of the company’s markets unit, said at the Nokia World event in London on Tuesday.

Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics in London said Nokia’s new handsets means a “step forward, rather than a leap” for the company.

“They are not iPhone killers just yet. It closes the gap, rather than overtakes them. … Nokia still clearly has got some way to go in improving design and overall user experience.”

The prices of the new products range from $260 to $495.

With Nokia stock down more than 20 per cent this year after two profit warnings, the company’s management has come under increasing pressure from investors.

‘New opportunities’

Vanjoki’s resignation announcement came just three days after Nokia replaced its chief executive officer, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, with Stephen Elop, who was an executive at Microsoft.

Vanjoki, who will remain for a six-month notice period, said: “I felt the time has come to seek new opportunities in my life.

“At the same time, I am 100 per cent committed to doing my best for Nokia until my very last working day.”

Greger Johansson, a Redeye analyst, said some people within the company have blamed Vanjoki for Nokia’s failure to catch up with its rivals in the high-end smartphone market.

“This frees up some space to create change,” Johansson said. “They are starting to get more people in who have the right competence.”

The company uses the Symbian operating system for its smartphones, which is the one used by its rival Apple and was not designed from the ground up for touchscreen phones.

Nokia is based in Espoo near Helsinki, the Finnish capital, and employs 130,000 people worldwide.