Nokia warns mobile-device sales will fall next year

Handset makers collectively will sell fewer mobile phones in 2009 than this year, and sales for 2008 will be lower than previously expected, Nokia warned on Friday.

However, Nokia doesn't expect smartphones to be particularly hard hit.

The world's largest cell phone maker said that it now expects that total mobile phone sales across the market for 2008 will be 1.24 billion, instead of its earlier estimate of 1.26 billion. The total is still better than 2007, when 1.14 billion phones were sold. While Nokia didn't give a figure for how many phones it expects to sell next year, it did say that the total will probably be lower than this year.

Nokia said that, in the last few weeks, the global economic slowdown, combined with unprecedented currency volatility, has resulted in consumers pulling back sharply on their spending.

The market for mobile devices "has also been negatively impacted by the more limited availability of credit, which has limited the purchasing ability of some of our trade customers," the Finnish company added.

Nokia still expects market share in the fourth quarter to be at or slightly above third-quarter levels but warned sales and profit in its devices and services unit will be negatively impacted.

The telecom-equipment industry wasn't spared either, with Nokia Siemens Networks forecasting both the mobile- and fixed-infrastructure markets will be down in euro terms next year.

The telecom-equipment industry wasn't spared either, with Nokia Siemens Networks forecasting both the mobile- and fixed-infrastructure markets will be down in euro terms next year.

Nokia Siemens is the 50-50 equipment venture between Nokia and Germany's Siemens

Samsung SPH-W6050 with WVGA-screen

The company introduced a new Samsung phone under the symbol SPH-W6050. The main advantage of this model is the presence of 3-inch touch LCD-display with a resolution WVGA (800x480 pixels). In addition, there is a 5 MP camera with autofocus and an outbreak, a slot for memory cards microSD, DMB-TV receiver. The unit supports Bluetooth-connected, 3G-technology HSUPA (High Speed Upload Packet Access), provides data transfer rate up to 5.7 Mb / s, as well as corporate interface Haptic, which supports technology simple "drag" objects drag and drop, which enables user interface to manipulate a simple touch of a finger.

The market of South Karei price of mobile phone Samsung SPH-W6050 will be about $ 650. The prospects for the emergence of Samsung SPH-W6050 outside Korea is not currently known.

Airtel and Asklaila Join Hands for Providing Local Search to subscriber

Asklaila today announced a partnership with Airtel, to power all of its city search services. The partnership enables Airtel customers to get up-to-date information about their city, free of cost, through asklaila's city information database. According to a press release, the asklaila-powered 'Airtel city search' will reach more than 30 million users across the six cities where asklaila is available, including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Bangalore.

The release claims that Airtel is the first telecom company in the world to deploy a multi-mode, multi-platform local search service since it is available across 3 platforms – cell phones, the Internet and Airtel's DTH service.

Airtel users can get local information either by messaging, an unstructured supplementary service data channel, through Airtel Live or by accessing asklaila's site on Airtel's GPRS service.