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Nokia Introduces Camera-Music Phone

Posted on: Wednesday, 27 April 2005, 18:00 CDT

HELSINKI, Finland -- Nokia Corp. unveiled Wednesday a new line of pricey mobile devices including a high-end camera phone with Carl Zeiss optics and a handset with enough storage for music to potentially compete with the iPod.

The N90 features a two-megapixel camera with autofocus, 20x digital zoom, integrated flash, a special mode for sharp close-ups, and on-phone video editing capabilities.

The N91 comes with a 4-gigabyte internal hard drive that Nokia says can hold up to 3,000 songs, depending on the music format.

Both phones, part of a new "Nseries" product line, are priced at 700 euros, or roughly $900.

The N90 is expected to begin shipping during the second quarter in markets in Europe, North America and South America. The N91 is expected to arrive November.

Nokia, the world's biggest mobile phone maker, said the new collaboration with Germany's Carl Zeiss AG will bring "design expertise and stringent quality requirements ... for high-end camera devices." More Nokia devices with Zeiss technology are expected down the road.

Speaking at a presentation of the new product line, Nokia's chief executive Jorma Ollila said this year the Finnish company expects to ship more than 100 million camera phones and 40 million mobile devices with MP3 music players.

"Digital camera phones have really been the growth area in the mobile handset business and Nokia has turned to be a clear leader in this area," Ollila said at an industry fair in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Separately, Boston-based research firm Strategy Analytics said Wednesday that Nokia had gained market share during the first two months of the year to 31.3 percent, up from 28.5 percent a year earlier.

Its chief rival, Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola Corp., also made slight gains to 16.7 percent, followed by South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. at 14.2 percent.

Nokia has sales in 130 countries and about 55,500 employees.

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On the Net:

Nokia site: http://www.nokia.com

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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