Now things are really getting interesting. China Telecom and Nokia just unveiled the Nokia 800C, the first CDMA Windows Phone in China and the first Windows Phone on a major carrier there.
The phone—a China-tuned version of Nokia’s popular Lumia 800—hits stores in April and comes in black and cyan. And Nokia is just getting started: A CDMA version of the Lumia 610 is also headed to China Telecom sometime in the second quarter of 2012.
The companies are a great match. Nokia has been building and selling phones in China, the world’s biggest mobile market, for 26 years. Some 250 million people there already use a Nokia phone.
China Telecom, meanwhile, operates the world’s largest CDMA cell network.
As a result, Nokia 800C owners will have access to popular Chinese media and social networking services including Sina, SOHU, Tencent and Renren. The phone also comes with Lumia-exclusive apps. Nokia Maps provides 3D maps of China and 190 more countries, plus content from popular Chinese travel, food, and real estate sites. Nokia Drive is a voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation app. And Nokia Music offers unlimited free music for 12 months in mainland China.
Here’s something else cool: To celebrate the first Lumia in the country, Nokia plans to offer 100,000 free downloads of the hit games Fruit Ninja and Plants vs Zombies via the new Chinese-language Windows Phone Marketplace.
Read more about today’s watershed announcement on Nokia Conversations.
