Nokia to halve smartphone offerings in 2010

Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, has announced it will be cutting its smartphone offering in half next year, despite losing market share to rivals RIM and Apple.

"We see ... really fierce competition certainly in the high end, but we also see it in the mid to low end of smartphones increasing," said Jo Harlow, chief of Nokia's smartphone unit, via Reuters. "We will defend our position, but we believe we also have tools to play offense as well as defense."

Part of that "defense" will be to push smartphone prices lower while at the same time increasing margins. Recent figures showed that Nokia had lost smartphone market share for the most recent quarter, from 41 percent to 35 percent.

"Reducing the number of smartphone models makes a lot of sense ... but Nokia has to be very careful in finding the right balance: its large product portfolio has been one of its strong competitive advantages in the past," concludes Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu.