Nokia Considers Selling Mobile Phone Division?

Is it or isn't it?

Speculation hit over the weekend that Finnish mobile giant Nokia was considering the unthinkable: selling off its mobile phone division. The speculation comes from quotes by non other than Nokia marketing head Anssi Vanjoki who said a transformation of the current business meant it had adopted a "never say never" attitude to such a proposal.


Consequently talk of just who has the financial muscle to make such a move intensified with maker-of-just-about-everything Foxconn the hot tip. Speculation seems to be cooling however with Nokia spokesperson Thomas Jonsson today stating: "Our logistics and manufacturing network is a very important competitive advantage for us, and a core part of our business. We have no plans to change our business model."

The pedantic among us would say that's pretty loose wording so talk won't die down completely, but it does seem to put the kibosh on any potential mega deal for now. That said, Nokia needs to turn things around quickly as its handset division continues to shed market share like it's going out of fashion. It's latest Q3 results report this as 35 per cent when it had been over 40 per cent early last year.

In related news word is spreading that Nokia will release just one handset based on its exciting Maemo platform during 2010. This would be the much anticipated N900 (above), but as Apple has already proved if you get it right you don't need more than one flagship smartphone per year...

In yet more related news The BBC has dismissed reports of a dedicated iPlayer iPhone app. Again rumour had built over the weekend - this time thanks to snaps in an iPlayer statics round-up presentation (pictured) - but the Beeb dismissed it as an out of date image on its Blog and said they would likely be removed.

Given the iPhone BBC iPlayer web app is already excellent it's hard to see how the investment in a dedicated app would have been worth it in any case...

Links:
Nokia via Reuters
iPlayer via BBC Blogs

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