Nokia to unveil new Asha handsets soon

Nokia is set to unveil its new line-up of Asha phones. This comes in the wake of a sharp fall in sales of its mobile phones when the company was focusing on its Lumia line of Windows Phone 8 handsets. The company is expected to unveil the new line-up at its global event on May 9.

“We are continuing to renew our portfolio, which includes plans to announce innovation and new products in the Asha line in the days immediately ahead,” Chief Executive Stephen Elop told investors at an annual general meeting on Tuesday.

New handsets in the Asha line-up are expected to be announced soon

Back in January, it was revealed that Nokia sells twice as many phones from the Asha line-up as Lumia handsets . While the Lumia series has been selling well, it would be well worth noting that Asha smartphones had hit 9.3 million units in the fourth quarter. This is more than double the number of units that the company had shipped of the Lumia series. This could be attributed to the popularity of low-end smartphones, as opposed to the considerably pricier higher end Lumia phones.

“Some countries, like China, appear to be “game, set, match” for Android, while others like Indonesia are heavily BlackBerry,” Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt told AllThingsD. “A_sha is interesting for Nokia because in many of these markets Nokia’s brand is very strong and Symbian devices used to sell very well. India, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America are examples of of regions and countries where Nokia likely has a strong opportunity with Asha, but even in these markets android phones are growing rapidly as well.”_

Nokia may be relying on the Asha series to sustain itself while it still tries to push its higher end Lumia out. Even now, the popularity of the Asha series can be seen by simply going into a Mumbai train and scanning the devices in commuters’ hands.