U.S. telco’s marketing chief commits to working with Finnish handse maker, but declines to say when.
Verizon Wireless will be selling devices running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone 8 operating system in the fourth quarter, and also has plans to work with Nokia Corp., executives at the U.S. telecom operator told technology website CNET.
“We’ll sell multiple Windows Phones in the fourth quarter,” Verizon Chief Marketing Officer Tami Erwin said in an interview with CNET published Wednesday.
Additionally, Verizons’s Chief Operating Officer Marni Walden said the carrier plans to work with Nokia, although she declined to provide detail on when this would happen.
Nokia, once the world’s largest mobile-phone makers, hoped to make a splash Wednesday when it introduced two phones, but its shares tumbled after it failed to say when its new Windows-running Lumia phones would become available, where they could be bought, and their cost.
Over the past few years, Nokia has struggled to gain traction with U.S. wireless carriers. While Nokia held 7% of the global smartphone market in the second quarter, it held only 2% of the U.S. market, according to researcher International Data Corp.
The previous Nokia smartphones built on Windows have been sold by AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA, but not by Verizon Wireless or Sprint Nextel Corp.