“The struggling mobile phone manufacturer Nokia Corp. has decided to close its operations in Japan by August 2011. Nokia will shut down its high-end Vertu handset stores in Shibuya and Ginza districts of Tokyo by the end of 2011,” Zacks Equity Research reports.
“Vertu is one of the premium tier mobile handset in Japan and its price is ranged from $7,450 to $248,354. Vertu handsets started struggling ever since smartphones of Apple Inc. and several Android-based smartphones entered the Japanese market,” Zacks Equity Research reports.
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“Nokia’s phone service in Japan currently runs on network infrastructure, which was leased from NTT DoCoMo, the largest Japanese wireless carrier,” Zacks Equity Research reports. “This contract will come to an end by end August 2011. Nokia has decided not to renew this deal. The Tokyo office of Nokia will remain [open] till end 2011 to manage post closure activities.”
Read more in the full article here.
This is what you get for trusting microsoft and creating devices for WP7
$7,450 to $248,354? Is that with or without a contract? =;-)
(Surely they mean ¥7,450 to ¥248,354. Or was the $ used to mean Mexican pesos?)
Nope. Those prices appear to be correct. This is a “luxury” line of yesterday’s “smartphones.”
http://www.vertu.com/in-en
They don’t have an online store — they have an online “boutique.”.
For example, they have a Bluetooth Headset in Black Resin and Stainless Steel for €590.
So nearly $900 for a wireless headset, no phone included.
““Vertu is one of the premium tier mobile handset in Japan and its price is ranged from $7,450 to $248,354”
Wow, the notion that a handset based upon Symbian can be worth a quarter million dollars is ludicrous. I want to know who bought that crap, so I can short their companies.
It says a lot that Vertu is what Nokia (and really the rest if the industry) considered a high-end phone.
It’s like they just assumed that the technology was totally mature (I know they were “upgradeable”, but I’m sure that means transmission standards, codecs, etc.)
Imagine if the automobile industry in 1920 started cranking out jewel-encrusted Model T Fords as the “high-end” product.
Jewel-encrusted Model Ts – Good analogy.
And that’s exactly what I think when I see the ads for DELL et al, offering customizable laptop graphics, and now DELL’s snap-on graphic laptop lid, as their answer to Apple’s superior technology.
Lipstick for their pigs – That’s all they have, and they actually admit it through their marketing?!
Whoooweeeeee, the “Wow” starts now.
I recently saw Dell’s commercial for the designer lid covers for their laptops. That was the only feature they were touting: They are so doomed.
As an aside, I still have and occasionally use my old Dell 9100 desk top replacement with snap on cover. I keep it hidden in a back room. Shhhhh.
Agree with DMac. That should be the amount in Yen!
I like their tagline: “Pioneering Luxury Mobile Phones”.
So sad.
I recently saw a Vertu phone at a high end jewelry store in my hometown for $18,000. Discount price.