Nokia launches 7 new phones and 2 new services for emerging markets

Nokia today announced that it was launching 7 new phones including the 5130 XpressMusic phone with dedicated music keys, FM radio and direct access to its Ovi services. All the seven phones are priced for emerging markets with price ranging from 25 EUR to 90 EUR for the XpressMusic. The other 6 phones are 7100 Supernova, 2323 classic, 2330 classic, 1202 and 1661. All of them are candybar phones and will be available starting this quarter or early next quarter.

In addition, Nokia also annouced two services: Mail on Ovi and Nokia Life Tools. Mail on Ovi, as the name suggest is mail service which will initially be available on Series 40 phones. A trial is planned in few select markets in November and will be rolled out to all Series 40 phones by end of this year.

The second service, Nokia Life Tools, is an umbrella service. Initially, it is targeted to emerging market rural consumers with the service providing information related to agriculture and education.  In the agriculture section, the service provides information on weather, seeds, grain prices, and other related information directly to the farmers’ handsets using rich client and SMS technology. In the education section, the service provides lessons on English and other general knowledge using quizzes and intuitive graphics. The service also includes Astrology and ringtone downloads. Initially, the service is being piloted in India with 3 languages supported, Marathi, Hindi and English. It will be rolled out to select countries in Asia and Africa in 2009.