DoCoMo cancels planned launch of new Nokia smart phone

Tuesday 02nd December, 09:27 AM JST

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7 Comments

noborito at 08:40 AM JST - 2nd December

"among users?" Their phones in Japan don't work with every provider. Where is the Nokia AU, Nokia Docomo, Nokia Softbank. I haven't been able to find one these outstanding phones with the provider I want. I believe the Western Nokia's work with almost every popular provider. But not in Japan, i.e. only 1% of the market. Why is the rest of the world using them. Because they are a good dam phone. Don't have all the bells and whistles that Japanese phones have, but sound, signal, quality, they beat Japanese phones hands down. Like my friend said, 2.0M pixel camera is crap. Why would people say that is a great addition to a phone? Want good sound quality buy a good phone. What a great photo, buy a great camera.
kawaiitenshi at 07:22 PM JST - 2nd December

Why is the rest of the world using them. Because they are a good dam phone.

I beg to differ. The reason why they are so big in the rest of world is because they are cheap and readily accessible. Much like LG and SAMSUNG handsets. I believe in most foreign countries, they (Nokia) were the first to launch coloured screen, MMS and other functions that Japan had a good 5-7 years earlier.. and became easily "popular" as there wasn't much else to choose from.

As an ex Nokia employee myself, I wouldn't even use the phone as a paperweight. They are more trouble than any other Japanese phone I have owned. They are problematic, poor quality and unreliable. Definitely a blessing in disguise for DoCoMo... they would have nothing but angry customers checking their phones in for repair every few months.
Zaidou86 at 11:42 PM JST - 2nd December

Japanese mobile phone market is specific. In France, the must have in mobile phone was a Nokia. Thinks change with touch screen devices. But, nokia will launch in the first quarter of 2009 touch screen devices among N Series range. In France, we are looking forward to buy the Nokia N97. Regarding the ability to use the mobile phone as an electronic wallet, we have to wait one year more. Mobile phone carriers and finacal companies agree to roul out this feature. It remains to see they will meet succes. Jaunay-Clan, France.
kokuryu at 09:43 AM JST - 3rd December

I am surprised at the negative responses to Nokia phones. I have found the Nokia cellphones to be problem free and of top quality. They are often NOT available as the "freebie" subsidized cellphones here in the US, and people often have to pay full price and buy them outright, but in my experience once a person uses a Nokia cellphone once, they never go to any other brand, ever again, and will pay a premium to get a Nokia cellphone of any model.

As to WHY the Nokia cellphones are so popular worldwide - you have to thank the Symbian consortium for that. The Nokia Symbian cellphones are the easiest cellphones in the world to write applications for. The iPhone is touting thousands of applications and millions of downloads, while the Nokia cellphones have tens of millions of applications and hundreds of billions of downloads.

Personally, I think the whole issue is the closed market mentality in Japan. If I were to believe kawaiitenshi's comments, then Japan created all that back in the 1970s for their cellphones. All of these products first came into action in the 1980s, and none of them came from Japanese manufacturers. As for Nokia being the "cheap" cellphone out there, as I already pointed out that is definitely NOT the case, and the vast majority of Nokia cellphones are in the mainstream mid-price range and above. And I already talked about the reliability of the cellphones as well. I have an EXTREMELY hard time believing they were "problematic, poor quality and unreliable". As a matter of fact, after reading a bunch of Nokia specific reviews from Japan, most of them give either top ranking or 1 off top ranking (5 of 6, 9 of 10, etc.) when rating all the features of the Nokia phones, and the only few complaints I see are either (a) the camera is not good enough, or (b) it does not serve TV - and even those were very very few complaints.
Rodney_King at 12:12 PM JST - 3rd December

Sure! Nokia is the favorite brand for rednecks. People who want technology, digital terrestrial TV, MP3, electronic money, and train ticket on their phone don't buy Nokia.
AlfGarnett at 12:48 PM JST - 3rd December

I agree with Kokuryu- Nokia are class phones, why else are they so popular and retain their value so well. Alao why are Japanese phones so unpopular worldiwde, the answer is, they are cheaply made second rate devices. Strewth, Rodney King, you are such a Japanophile as from reading your previous posts, your case to me is invalid.
taiko666 at 07:09 PM JST - 3rd December

Rodney King: I wanted MP3, MP4, Ogg, AVI/Mpeg video, 5mpix camera, GPS, WLAN, USB, Bluetooth, a real browser, miniSD, TV out cable to show my videos, real headphone socket, British TV player, barcode scanner, MS Office suite applications, exandability, multi-tasking, full Japanese and English incl predictive support for e-mail/Skymail/SMS, excellent international roaming... so the natural choice in Japan was a Nokia N95.