Nokia damns iPhone with faint praise

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 11 Jan 2007 at 11:14

Apple's iPhone is an interesting product, but its sales goal is not very high, the head of the multimedia unit at Nokia, Anssi Vanjoki, was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Apple unveiled its much-anticipated version of a smart phone on Tuesday, presenting a sleek device with a large screen that combines a phone, an iPod and instant messaging.

'It is quite an interesting product but it is lacking a few essential features, such as 3G, which would enable fast data connections,' Vanjoki, whose multimedia unit is a direct rival to Apple, was quoted as saying by Finnish business daily Taloussanomat.

Apple's Chief Executive Steve Jobs said it could sell 10 million iPhones in 2008. This would be roughly 1 percent of the number of mobile phones forecast to be sold that year.

'Apple's objective is not at a very high level,' Vanjoki was quoted as saying.

Vanjoki said Apple's entry would give an additional boost to the market and that the iPhone proved Nokia's multimedia strategy was right.

'This is another piece of evidence that we have been on the right track from the beginning,' he said.

Nokia said earlier this week it had sold close to 70 million phones with integrated MP3 players last year but analysts say sales of Nokia's music-focused devices account for only a small share of that total.

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