Nokia: Cheaper Windows Phones Will Take On Android "Aggressively"

Nokia will push for even cheaper Windows Phone handsets than the current entry-level Lumia 610, CEO Stephen Elop has confirmed today, so as to "compete with Android aggressively." Speaking on the company's impromptu Q&A call today, following news earlier today that Nokia would cut 10,000 jobs, Elop said that reducing the cost of entry to Windows Phone was a primary goal for the near future.

That's if Nokia – and, more broadly, Windows Phone – wants to successfully compete with Android and iOS, which as Elop pointed out already have a solid footprint in the retail ecosystem.

Android in particular has presented "a lot of challenges" Elop conceded, as the platform increasingly cropped up in cheaper handsets. Until relatively recently, Microsoft's minimum hardware specifications for Windows Phone had meant entering the low-cost market was pretty much impossible for any OEM, though subsequent changes to how little RAM, for instance, devices could ship using has led to a gradual shift down the price scale.

The Lumia 610 has a pre-subsidy and -tax price of €189 ($237), which has translated to low-cost monthly tariffs and pre-pay deals in the countries where the handset has already gone on sale. However, its 256MB of memory has meant that some apps – including Microsoft-owned VoIP favorite Skype – are incompatible.