Nokia promising a range of new phones in both US and Europe

In an interview with Pocket-lint Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop has promised the maintain their “rolling thunder” momentum in terms of device announcements.

“We have not announced the 900 in other countries. One of the things you should notice though is that we clearly have a pattern of this rolling thunder of announcements one after another and what we are doing more and more is making sure that we are targeting specific devices and specific price points for specific markets,” he said

“For example, in the US, one of the things that was actually one of the most important things we did with the Lumia 900 was LTE support. LTE support costs. It costs in terms money for the radio, extra battery life requirement and so forth. LTE in Europe is not so important. It will be, but not today. We haven’t announced anything specific, but clearly there is going to be a steady pattern of new devices and a full portfolio of capabilities in Europe and around the world. There is lots more to watch.”

Talking about the Nokia Lumia 900 he said  there “are there going to be successor devices, different shapes, sizes, different configurations, of course.”

“The message we are trying to deliver is: 710, 800, 900, and there is going to be more.”

He notes however that those that bought the Lumia 800 should not  feel cheated that the 900 is coming out less than 6 months later.

“I will absolutely continue to carry an 800 because it is a beautiful device and I like the form factor and the size. The 800 is going to continue to sell in markets around the world for a great deal of time to come, so I think people should be very proud of the device they have because in itself it is a unique experience.”

When asked about sales figures he remained cagey.

“The first thing we look at, because this is more important than anything else, is how are the products being received by consumers? When they put them in their hand, when they begin to use them, how are they rating the experience; because, if we don’t have the product right, then everything else is more difficult.

“We are very pleased with the reception we are seeing broadly. We look at something in particular called the net promoter score (NPS), which is essentially a person’s willingness to recommend a Lumia product to a friend. It sounds like a very simple question, but actually many companies use it in a very scientific way. Because instead of asking do you like the colour, do you like the buttons, do you like the applications, would you recommend it to a friend, it tends to be an overarching measure of the quality of the experience and we have some good NPS scores that we are seeing from our early consumers.”

“Right now my senses tell me that people look at the devices and look at the ecosystem and say ‘OK we see it, we understand it, we can now visualise what it means and we’re impressed.’ I am hearing that a lot, and I am pleased with that. We now need to go to the next step which is ‘OK, we are seeing it built, seeing the growth in it,’ and that’s what we should be talking about a year from now. And of course I hope to be talking about the next wave of this, and the new products for that, and new services, so innovation constantly, we’ll be talking about a year from now.”

“A year from now, I want the story to be a bit more about, OK, this third eco-system, it’s in play, this is happening. There will be a big raging debate about it, but having a more balanced perspective that there is a third contender that clearly is in the game.”

“Our primary challenge is to make sure that a consumer is aware of the products, understands how the user experience with the Live Tiles works and everything that makes Windows Phone what it is. We have to help them understand that and we have to get the devices in their hands. Everything we are doing is focused on reducing the friction in that process.

“The point is, we are educating consumers about the tiles, about that experience, because what is out there in the industry today, people are most familiar with, is a grid of applications and icons that don’t do anything. They aren’t used to things that are scrolling, that are alive, that are presenting information. So as we introduce them to that, we are confident then that we will see some good momentum. But it is still very early days.”

Read more at Pocket-Lint here.