Nokia plans to announce Windows Phone 8-based handsets in early September, a report has indicated.
Bloomberg cites "a person with knowledge of the matter" as saying Nokia plans to announce an unknown number of handsets at its Nokia World 2012 conference, to be held this year on September 5-6 in Helsinki, Finland. As per the report, the Finnish company plans to have the new handsets on sale in time for holiday season later this year.
Nokia, which recently lost its ranking of 14 years as the world's biggest mobile phone maker, dramatically changed its strategy a year and a half ago when chief executive, Stephen Elop, warned it was "standing on a burning platform" and needed to immediately shift course.
The Finnish company's new strategy involved phasing out its Symbian smartphones in favour of a partnership with Microsoft.
That alliance has produced a first line of Lumia smartphones, which Nokia is counting on to help it survive in a rapidly changing landscape marked by stiff competition from RIM's Blackberry, Apple's iPhone and handsets running Google's Android platform.
However, sales of Nokia's Lumia phones, which run the Microsoft software, have yet to grab share back from Apple and Samsung Electronics smartphones in the most profitable part of the mobile market.
The Microsoft platform had only a 2 percent market share in the first quarter of 2012, compared with 23 percent for Apple and 56 percent for Google's Android platform, which is used by multiple mobile phone firms including Samsung.
With agency inputs
41-megapixel Nokia 808 in pictures