Tips Hamil Cara Cepat Corp. on Thursday said it delayed the release of Symbian 3, the latest version of its smartphone operating system, because it fell short of internal quality guidelines, as the Finnish mobile giant promised the platform would be more intuitive, fun and faster than the existing version and power several products by the end of the year.
Buku Panduan Lengkap Cara Cepat Hamil "We will not ship the product before the quality meets the end user's needs and demands,"
Nokia Chief Executive Olli Pekka Kallasvuo said in a conference call following the release of the company's first-quarter results.
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"It's a painful thing to delay something a bit. I am aware of that. But at the same time meeting the quality requirements is the right thing to do," he stressed.
Nokia's /quotes/comstock/22u!noki-sek (FI:NOK1V 11.28, -0.03, -0.27%) /quotes/comstock/13*!nok/quotes/nls/nok (NOK 12.97, -1.98, -13.24%) sales and earnings missed analysts' expectations on Thursday.
During the call with Kallasvuo, however, analysts were most concerned by the delay of the eagerly-awaited and sorely needed Symbian 3, which they view as key to boosting Nokia's devices and services operating margin this year.
In fact, it is partly the Symbian 3 setback that drove Nokia to cut its guidance on that profitability indicator to a range of 11% to 13% this year compared to an earlier forecast of 12% to 14%, helping to send its shares down 13%. Read more about Nokia's latest earnings.
The release of a better smartphone operating system is viewed as essential to the future success of Nokia, which has fallen behind more innovative rivals such as Apple /quotes/comstock/15*!aapl/quotes/nls/aapl (AAPL 258.40, -0.82, -0.32%) and HTC at the high end.
These competitors, along with Google /quotes/comstock/15*!goog/quotes/nls/goog (GOOG 544.28, -10.02, -1.81%) , have over the past two years launched platforms that have revolutionized the way people use their phones.
Nokia has been slow to react, and lost market share as a result, but it argued on Thursday that it would catch up big time with Symbian 3. The following update, called Symbian 4, will be simpler to implement and is less urgent.
"Symbian 3 will really do the heavy lifting," Kallasvuo said. "I don't believe we really need Symbian 4 this year."
In the meantime little is known about what Symbian 3 will concretely change to the user experience. Nokia CFO Timo Ihamuotila on Thursday said that, among other things, it would feature better touch-screen use and, unlike the iPhone, play Flash movies.
Still, the Finnish manufacturer isn't completely abandoning the previous version, and said it could still release products based on it, particularly in emerging markets.
Work on the Symbian revamps is driving up operating expenses at Nokia but Ihamuotila said that's only in the short term, and that longer term the company still targets increased efficiency in its research and development department.
"We feel that now is the right time to continue to invest at this level so we have the right product," he said.
