Nokia delay flagship N8 – continuing woes

Nokia have not had an easy 12 months, with declining sales and the replacement of their CEO. News has just reached us that they are delaying their flagship N8, once again.

The N8 is seen as Nokia's first major smartphone to launch a challenge against Apple's iPhone, the success of this model is seen as being critical for Nokia's growth and profit margins.

“A single device does not normally have a significant impact on Nokia's … development. But with the N8 the firm has much more at stake,” analysts at FIM Bank said. “The new delay is once again a blow to Nokia's already tarnished image and it could also endanger the firm's Q3 earnings target.”

Nokia's shares are down by 1.7 percent after news of this hit and a company spokesperson said that the first phones are scheduled to leave factories at the end of September. Unfortunately deliveries to customers who have preordered the phone will be delayed by several weeks. The reason Nokia have given is “We have decided to hold the shipments for a few weeks to do some final amends.” We don't know if they are experiencing issues with the hardware or whether they are just making some tweaks to the OS before shipment.

Many analysts are not viewing this as a positive move and John Strand, chief executive of Danish telecoms consultancy Stand Consult made a short statement “This is embarassing”.

KitGuru says: Stephen Elop has just started in his new job as Nokia's chief executive after his move from Microsoft. Not a great first week for him, but hopefully things start to get better.

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