Carriers Set To Battle for Nokia “Hero” Device Exclusivity.

 

Nokia looks set to continue their strategy of Carrier Exclusivity with their next flagship, possibly the Lumia 928 which is due to be launched at the end of June, according to reports.

Carriers in the UK and US will be bidding for the chance to exclusively carry the next Nokia flagship for a set amount of time, similar to how the Lumia 920 launched on AT&T in the States and EE in the UK.

Despite critics claiming these deals restrict availability, Nokia seem to feel the strategy works, as latest quarterly reports have seen sales of Lumia handsets rise 27% from the previous quarter and 10% from the year before.

Mobile Today reports here that Nokia are also set to bring a 6 inch phablet to market this year, though this seems more like speculation as they actually quote Stephen Elop as saying;
“(Nokia are working on) broader form factors and different things that we can do…We have a lot of juice ahead, as it relates to the Lumia product lines.”

While AStephen could well be talking about a tablet, or “phablet” nothing is confirmed and Elop is being as coy as ever.

Nokia may face more critism over their decision to launch the device on one single carrier, but as HTC’s performance with the HTC 8X and 8S has shown, launching devices across the board is no guarentee to success either.