“We do not consider Nokia as just a mobile phone manufacturer,” William said. “I think Nokia, with the multimedia computers and the N Series brand, has taken initiative in the area of convergence. This is one area we all have to look out for because we will see a huge progress in that area for Nokia within 12 or 24 months.”

As of last year, Nokia remains to be the market leader in the local mobile phone industry. Globally, Nokia sold one out of three or around 1.02 billion phones in the market.

William points out that the local market is learning and that more and more people nowadays are choosing a device with multimedia capabilities such as imaging, digital audio, and the internet. “As Nokia moves forward, you'll see that technology will undergo miniaturization. Mobile phones will integrate multimedia and it's a big market that also considers fashion, design, form factor and services. You will all see this in the phones that Nokia is developing.”

During the company’s roundtable discussion held at Makati City last week, the nine phones that Nokia released included two new phones for the E Series line (E65 and E61i), the 6110 Navigator, and the N 95 which is considered a multimedia computer in disguise. Nokia wants to commit to what they have been saying about what the product will be able to provide.

“N95 is a revolutionary phone and we are putting the first step in the multimedia segment with it,” William explained. The reason for the delay of the N95 is because we want it to be the best in the market of what it is capable of doing. So when you talk about music, pictures, the internet, file sharing or connectivity, compare what this product is capable of doing to other products in the market and you will understand why Nokia has taken a few months more to make this product the best. Consumers who will buy the N95 will have in their hands a product that will enable them to use, integrate all the technologies and services of the next coming months and probably at least in the next year or two.

Nokia will be a major player around the digital music area in the coming years with their already-released N Series. “When you sell one phone out of three worldwide, imagine if that one phone has an integrated mp3 player?,” William said. “If we can get the music side of those phones or the installation of the application on the products in the field, backed up with the mindset of the people to consider a music phone for an mp3 player, why not have everything in one? This is where we are going and this is where we will be in the coming months.

The local imaging market will also be a target of Nokia, which can also be seen in the N Series phones currently lead by the N93i. Nokia also expanded its stores in key cities in the Philippines such as in Cebu, Iloilo, and soon in other areas outside Luzon.

Nokia also focuses on helping the community with projects like the Text2Teach - a local program aimed to develop a cost effective way of giving educational programs to students in rural areas. Currently, over 120,000 students in more than 200 schools in the Philippines are said to have benefited from the program. (Carlo S. Suerte Felipe)