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Nokia CEO: No shift from Windows Phone

Will not turn back

Nokia's CEO has insisted the Finnish phone giant's future lies with Windows Phone and no other OS.

"In today's war [between] Android, Apple and Windows, we are very clear, we are fighting that with the Windows phone," company chief Stephen Elop told reporters in Oslo.

"I don't think about rewinding the clock and thinking about competing elsewhere," he insisted.

Presumably, we can rule out a BlackBerry 10 licence then.

Elop added that Nokia will release Windows 8 phones in the "relatively near term". That's being interpreted as confirmation of rumours the company will launch its new handsets early next month at its annual Nokia World shindig, which this year kicks off on 5 September in Helsinki.

That's seven days before Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 5 and the iPad Mini.

If Nokia hopes to steal a march on Apple, it may be in for a shock. Yesterday, market watcher Gartner claimed global sales of mobile phones fell by 2.3 per cent year-on-year to 419 million devices in Q2 2012.

Smartphones accounted for 36.7 per cent of all mobe sales, up 42.7 per cent on the same three-month period last year on the back of stronger than expected sales of Samsung kit.

But Gartner's overall diagnosis: the quarter's phone sales are down because of recession and pent-up demand for the next Apple handset.

Last month, market watcher Strategy Analytics forecast 123m smartphones will ship into the US this year, but only 5m of them - four per cent of the total - will be running Windows Phone. ®

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