There are some reports from Japan which suggest that Nokia is planning to take a leap into the unknown, as the Finnish company is planning to start its own mobile network in Japan that will offer handsets as well as monthly plans behind them.

Yomiuri Shimbun (a newspaper) says that Nokia is about to start a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service and will use an infrastructure leased from NTT DoCoMo in February next year.

But the report says that the MVNO is not going to compete with existing operators in Japan directly and it will leverage Nokia’s Vertu brand to target the extreme high end of the market.

This new venture will most probably be irrelevant to ordinary Japanese phone users, as the Vertu handsets will be available with the price tag of ¥5 million (£35,000) each. Read the rest of this entry »

Customer response to the Apple’s iPhone is so strong, there are a lot of predatory re-sellers taking advantage of the opportunity already. The company was quick to note this and they immediately imposed a ban on all purchases using cash. They are relying on using credit cards as a way to screen those who are looking out to re-sell the gadgets for a quick and nice profit. Hopefully it will stem the number of those who are preying on late buyers this coming holiday. The sales projections are seriously strong on this prospect that the company is estimating a major number of those who initially purchased the innovative gadget were actually intending to re-sell the products.

The company is trying to provide everyone an equal opportunity by limiting the amount of phone purchase for every person to about two only as compared to the previous limit of five units per person. The move might be too late though as there are about more than a million units already sold since its launch from June. Only time will tell how much has been accumulated by unscrupulous re-sellers.

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