A new Nokia 5G smartphone might arrive in China this year?
Recently, a rumor came flying from China regarding a potential partnership between Nokia Mobile and Huawei for integrating the HarmonyOS 2 with the upcoming Nokia X60 smartphones. However, Huawei and Nokia Mobile quickly turned down the claims. It could have been a big move from Nokia Mobile’s end to capture the Chinese market if it was to happen.
The chances of that happening are very slim, but today some new reports arrived from China stating that Nokia Mobile is planning to launch a new 5G phone in China. Just to be clear, these claims are not coming from any unverified sources, but from an employee of HMD Global.
Yucheng Zhang, a China-based Marketing Specialist (not a Product Manager) at HMD Global, who joined in June 2020 (as per his LinkedIn account), usually stays active on the social media platform called Weibo and sometimes also replies to questions asked by people regarding Nokia phones in the comments.
In one of his recent posts, he was asked about the launch of 5G Nokia phones (not necessarily a flagship) in China, to which he replied (translated), “Strive to be before Double 11 (November 11).” Surprisingly, it seems that the comment was edited later as now it says “this year.” We checked some of his older posts and found some more comments regarding the same topic.
The translated texts are listed below alongside the screenshots in the slideshow:
- “There are 5G products in (for?) China, and there will be a 4G entry backup machine before that.” This one is from April 19, before the launch of the Nokia C20 Plus in China.
- “can come in the second half of the year.” Response to a question regarding the same, dated June 6.
He also cleared in one of the statements that the Nokia X20 and Nokia C30 will not head to China. In another comment, he says that the possibilities of MediaTek 5G chipsets in Nokia smartphones are “not rule(d) out.” There is also a post that explains the product division in the new naming scheme of Nokia smartphones.
“The C series replaces the previous C and 1 series; the G series replaces the original 2 to 5 (series); the X series are the previous 6 series and above,” adds Yucheng Zhang. The comments are pretty straightforward, and coming from an HMD Global employee does add some (if not a lot) credibility, but should not be taken as company statements.
If you go through his LinkedIn account, then you will also stumble upon a line that reads, “Bringing 5G and ULC (Ultra Low Cost) to China,” which is one of his key responsibilities. It possibly means that the company has this ambition of bringing 5G Nokia phones to China since the times of Nokia 8.3 5G.
No wonder the device was also certified by CQC in China, but we never heard anything about it afterward. Given that how Nokia Mobile had to retract from the world’s largest smartphone market in 2019 when FIH Mobile stopped making Nokia smartphones, it will be interesting to see how the company will manage its business with mid/high range 5G products.
Additionally, the guy also says that the partnership between Nokia Mobile and the movie “No Time To Die” is still on. For now, the release date of the film is September 31 in the UK. So if everything goes smoothly, then Nokia Mobile will possibly target the launch of its most high-end smartphones (or flagship, if it has any) around that time to get the maximum reach.
Via: ITHome
