US To Be Nokia's Top Priority

An interesting article on MobileTracker prove some hopeful information for us Nokia fans here in the US. 

Nokia's incoming CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo plans to make the US his top priority when he steps in on June 1st.  Quoted from an article in the Red Herring:

"In mobile phone operations, we aim for leadership in everything," he said. "If you aren't the leader in each sector and segment, you will easily lose out.  You cannot be strong in one area and just take part in another."

At present, Motorola leads the US in the handset market, thanks mostly to the popularity of its RAZR and other clamshell handsets. 

Nokia, as well as other manufacturers, has learned the U.S. market is different from the rest of the world. In the U.S., wireless carriers play a more important role in determining which models will be available in stores.

“If the model is not going to an operator’s channel, you are not going to see any good volumes,” said Tuong Nguyen, research analyst at Gartner. About 60 percent of phones in North America are sold by operators.

This kind of clears up the theory that Nokia just doesn't acknowledge its US consumers.  Me personally, I don't blame the manufacturer, I blame the providers and the statement made reassures me that its mostly them that is holding us back from having more of a variety of devices to use.

Maybe if this does work out for the US, consumers won't have to worry so much about the warranty issue, since we will have hopefully the same handsets... hmmm.