On billboards across Beijing, in subway stations and on banners outside its stores, China Mobile Limited is inviting subscribers to \u201cChange Phones for the New Year!\u201d with Nokia Oyj\u2019s Lumia 920T.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not as easy as it looks. Most China Mobile outlets won\u2019t carry the 4,599-yuan ($738) device ahead of next week\u2019s holiday, with the largest Chinese operator blaming delivery shortages. While 90,000 Lumia 920T models were ordered through Jan. 30, Nokia only shipped 30,000, said Li Yan, a China Mobile spokeswoman, Bloomberg<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n Nokia missing out on the Chinese New Year shopping season is another stumble for the Finnish company two years into a comeback attempt driven by the Microsoft Corp.-powered Lumia.<\/p>\n After US holiday sales trailed estimates, Nokia risks a repeat in the largest handset market, which it once dominated and is trying to win back from Android devices and Apple Inc.\u2019s iPhone.<\/p>\n \u201cChina is the hottest market by far now and everybody is circling around trying to get in as much presence as they can,\u201d said Neil Mawston, an analyst at Strategy Analytics in London. \u201cNokia must not fail in China because it would place their entire worldwide recovery effort at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Nokia led smartphone sales in China with a market share topping 50 per cent as recently as two years ago, only to let it slip away after ditching its own Symbian operating system in favor of Microsoft\u2019s Windows.<\/p>\n Local rivals such as Lenovo Group Limited and China Wireless Technologies Limited, as well as giants Samsung Electronics Co and Apple Inc. have left Nokia with a meager one per cent share, according to Strategy Analytics.<\/p>\n The Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on February 10 this year and is followed by a week-long holiday, is a gift-giving season in China comparable to the peak Christmas shopping rush in the US Retail sales during last year\u2019s New Year holiday week rose 16 per cent to $75bn.<\/p>\n \u201cNokia\u2019s production is still very low and supply isn\u2019t meeting demand at this point,\u201d China Mobile\u2019s Li said in a Feb. 1 interview. \u201cMany of our stores don\u2019t have any units.\u201d<\/p>\n The shortage threatens to let rivals widen their lead as China Mobile\u2019s New Year campaign also features Samsung\u2019s Galaxy Note 2, Lenovo\u2019s A798T, the Coolpad 8190 from China Wireless, the MT788 from Google Inc.\u2019s Motorola Mobility, and HTC Corp\u2019s T528t.<\/p>\n Two China Mobile outlets visited by a Bloomberg News reporter at Beijing\u2019s World Trade Center and on Guanghua Road on Feb. 1 both said they never received any of the Lumia 920T models, and didn\u2019t expect any until after the holiday. The five rival devices were available at outlets visited by Bloomberg.<\/p>\n Nokia acknowledged last month that supply constraints have held back sales, saying it is working to overcome the issue. James Etheridge, a Nokia spokesman, declined to comment on shipments to China Mobile or reasons for supply constraints.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are now building more capacity as we speak to match the demand, and we would expect that at some point in not too distant future, we would be in a situation where we are no longer constrained,\u201d Timo Ihamuotila, Nokia\u2019s chief financial officer, said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On billboards across Beijing, in subway stations and on banners outside its stores, China Mobile Limited is inviting subscribers to \u201cChange Phones for the New Year!\u201d with Nokia Oyj\u2019s Lumia 920T. That\u2019s not as easy as it looks…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More Stories in International Business<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"