Nokia is back in the fray. Just months after selling its ailing handsets business to Microsoft, the Finnish company is planning to go back into the consumer market with a new tablet.
The former top mobile phone maker,said yesterday it will launch a 7.9-inch device early next year in China, the world’s biggest market, before selling it elsewhere.
The device will be manufactured by Foxconn, which makes Apple’s handsets. And it will operate Android instead of the Windows software Nokia used on its cellphones when it began a partnership with Microsoft in 2011.
That partnership ended unsuccessfully, in April Nokia sold its cellphones unit to Microsoft for $7.2 billion.
Sebastian Nystrom, head of at Nokia’s technologies unit, described the N1 tablet as “a new beginning for Nokia. “
He noted that about 80 per cent of the world’s mobile consumers use Android, compared with just 2.5 per cent using Windows mobile devices.
The aluminum-cased tablet uses Google’s Android Lollipop operating system, and will retail for some $250.
