Nokia may make more acquisitions in services push

Nokia likely will look to acquire additional smaller Internet and technology firms as it expands its business into the services realm, a top company executive said.

"It is likely we will find small technology companies," Niklas Savander, Nokia's executive vice present of services, said at the company's Nokia World event, according to Reuters. Savander said the acquisitions likely would be of companies that are already working on services Nokia would want to bring to the market, thereby allowing Nokia to launch those services faster.

"It is acceleration of the implementation of a plan we already we have," Savander said in a conference call with reporters..

Nokia recently decided to make services a key focus of its business as it looks to move beyond its traditional role as a hardware maker. Nokia has been touting that it has 55 million total Internet service users, and that the business generated around $200 million from April to June.

However, the company's efforts have been uneven so far. Nokia's Ovi Store was panned when it first launched, but the company is looking to build up the store's application library and expand its user base. Nokia acquired the mobile software firm cellity in July, but decided to close down its Mosh ("Mobilize and Share") social networking effort earlier this spring.

In the conference call, Savander conceded that Nokia "did not have a pretty start" with the Ovi launch, and underestimated demand and the infrastructure needed to support the store, which crashed on its first day. However, he said the store now has an extremely high reliability rating, and that the company would now focus on trying to make it "local" by offering integrated billing with operators and support for various languages. The store is available in eight countries now, but Savander promised it would reach its "true potential" when it becomes available in around 100 countries.

Savander said that Nokia's services push needed to make an impact in the U.S. market, but that success would be tied to Nokia gaining a greater foothold in the U.S. handset market. "The U.S. is where we must succeed," he told said at the conference, according to Reuters. "The success will need to go hand-in-hand with our devices."

For more:
- see this Reuters article [1]

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