Nokia unveiled new music phones and an upgraded N95 handset Wednesday, and also announced plans to launch Ovi ("door" in Finnish), its new Internet services platform, which combines Nokia Music Store, N-Gage (gaming) and Nokia Maps. The 5610, 5310, N81 and new N95 handsets will start shipping in the fourth quarter. Ovi is also scheduled to be available to customers from Q4. Nokia Music Store will initially open in select European markets, with single tracks costing €1, albums €10 and streaming subscriptions €10. 
CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said Nokia's "target is to have all the music in all the world available to everybody." Nokia's music catalog will have "millions" of songs and not be smaller than rival Apple's iTunes, according to Kallasvuo. N-Gage was reintroduced with Capcom, Vivendi Games Mobile and I-Play as game suppliers. Nokia expects the global market for multimedia phones to grow to 120 million units this year, compared to 80M in 2006. Nokia was last up 2.8% to €22.91 in the afternoon session in Helsinki. Nokia's ADRs are up 3.9% to $31.19 in light, but increasing pre-market activity, after losing 2.5% to $30.01 on Tuesday.
Sources: Press release, Bloomberg, MarketWatch, Thomson Financial
Commentary: Nokia Grabs More Market Share from Motorola • Nokia Has To Clear The iPhone's High Bar • Matsushita Battery Picks Up Nokia Recall Tab
Stocks/ETFs to watch: NOK. Competitors: MOT, ERIC, SNE, AAPL, PALM, RIMM, Samsung [not traded in the U.S., but a 14% component of iShares MSCI S. Korea (EWY)]. ETFs: MTK, WMH
Earnings call transcripts: Nokia Q2 2007
Related: Ovi website
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