Nokia, the world’s top cellphone maker, said on Monday it would start to make laptops, entering a fiercely competitive, but fast-growing market.
Nokia has seen its profit margins drop over the last quarters as handset demand has slumped, and analysts have worried that entering the PC industry, where margins are traditionally razor-thin, could hurt Nokia’s profits further.
“We are fully aware what has the margin level been in the PC world. We have gone into this with our eyes wide open,” Kai Oistamo, the head of Nokia’s key phone unit, said.
Its first netbook, the Nokia Booklet 3G, will use Microsoft’s Windows software and Intel’s Atom processor—offering up to 12 hours of battery life, and weighing 1.25kg. Netbooks are low-cost laptops optimised for surfing the internet and performing other basic applications. Pioneered by Asustek in 2007, other brands such as HP and Dell have also pushed out their own lines since then.
Research firm IDC expects netbook shipments this year to grow over 127% from 2008 to over 26 million units, outperforming the overall PC market that is may remain flat.
source :REUTERS
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