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April 24, 2009
Lumia

Sorting through 1100 rumors a day



ESPOO, Finland – Rumors are a normal part of life. Someone hears something or thinks they heard something and, next thing you know, it’s repeated everywhere as fact.

For the most part, here at Nokia, we follow those rumors, but let most of them be. Of the ones that have any staying power, or that have the potential to snowball into something more serious, we look at these more closely and weigh action. In the end, there are a few we feel can be clarified and put to rest with a simple statement.

Below, I have listed four rumors we have read or heard in the past few weeks that could use a sentence of two to shoo them away. Read on the learn more.

The little guy that could
Long time readers know my repsect for the Nokia 1100. Nokia sold over 200 million of these, so they are pretty popular, too. With these number in mind, a set of miscreants allegedly purchased a Nokia 1100 for €25,000. The intent was to use a rumored security exploit to, of course, steal oodles of money off of unsuspecting victims.

OK, so, we’re not sure which part of the story is true, if any. But, we’re pretty certain the security issue is false (I asked, to check). We have not identified anything in the Nokia 1110 phone software that would enable this exploit.

Having the capacity to touch
Last week there was a rumor out of Taiwan that Nokia had placed a whopping order of capacitive touch displays to put into the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. I don’t know if the order was real or not, but I do know that we’re not changing the hardware of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Say what you say about capacitive touch, the 5800 is doing fine without it.

There are 97 reasons this is not so
Everyone is excited about the Nokia N97. I get asked every day when it will hit the stores or come to a particular country. One particular rumor stated that Vodafone is not going to sell it until December (despite the Vodafone store page saying July)

I checked yesterday with whose who know and the N97 is on track to be released into the wild in June. That was June. In case you didn’t read that, I said the N97 will be available in June (and if it isn’t, I’m going to kick someone’s butt).

As a quick disclaimer, I don’t know if this date means June 1 or June 30 (well, most likely not the last week in June, when all the Finns will be on holiday). Also, I don’t know if it means pallets of devices in each store; a few units at the flagship stores; or one on a shelf in some small phone shop in Lapland, put there by Anssi Vanjoki on June 30, just before the store closes. Furthermore, operators and distributors in each country have a strong influence on when the N97 will be available to their customers.

So, when we say June, we mean we’re setting it free in June. But it may take some time to trickle down into your eager hands.

Listening to the tune of the cash register
One last rumor I want to touch on is one that says Comes With Music, Nokia’s all-you-can-eat-in-a-year music-phone combo, might not be selling well, particularly in the UK.

I wasn’t able to chase down any numbers, but was told that folks here are quite pleased with the launches and how sales have been progressing, particularly in Australia and Singapore. Nonetheless, we managed to get our hands on a few interesting trends seen in Comes With Music users.

– Customers download on average 200 to 300 tracks in the first few weeks.
– There are regular visits to check new music as well as explore the back catalogue and recommendations.
– The majority of downloading is via PC, but Over The Air is also important for convenience downloads (approximately 20%).
– A strong local content catalogue has been important, approximately 35% of downloads.
– The typical Nokia Music Store customer downloads tracks from across 3 genres. However, typical Comes With Music customers download tracks from across 7 genres.
– Comes With Music customers are downloading 20 times more backcatalog than Music Store customers.

These trends suggest that Comes With Music is changing the way people get and listen to music, and that Comes With Music is expanding the music industry for everyone, including labels, artists and publishers.

Parting shot
That’s it for rumors for now. If you have more of them or want to make up a few (be civil!), feel free to add them below and we might be able to answer (remember we don’t react to all of them). But, keep in mind: one class of rumor we definitely don’t comment on are the ones related to future products or services that we have not already announced (that includes leaks and speculations, as well). Don’t ask about these. There’s no point. We won’t answer. Sorry.

Image from Cane Ludico Rosso