(Adds new phones won't reach Belgium until next year.)
By Sam Schechner, Leos Rousek and Sven Grundberg
STOCKHOLM--Nokia Corp.'s (NOK) new flagship smartphone will be
on sale in France in two months' time, a person familiar with the
situation said Friday.
Vivendi SA's (VIV.FR) SFR, France's second-largest mobile
operator, will offer the Lumia 920 in November, according to a
person close to the company.
Telecom Italia said it would sell the new Nokia phones in Italy
but couldn't specify when. Other large European mobile operators
declined to comment.
Nokia's launch of the new phones in New York on Wednesday was
highly anticipated, but a lack of detailed information about the
sales and marketing plan disappointed investors. A person familiar
with Nokia's plans said that the Finnish company will start to make
announcements regarding pricing and availability next week.
Some smaller European countries said they are not expecting the
phone until early next year.
"Nokia informed us that Belgium will not receive the first Lumia
920 before January 2013," said Florence Muls, a spokeswoman for
Belgian mobile operator Base, a unit of Royal KPN (KPN).
Operators in the Czech Republic said the same. The country's
second-biggest carrier T-Mobile Czech Republic said it was
undecided whether to sell the phones at all.
"Both new Lumias are in fact very expensive," spokeswoman
Martina Kemrova said "For now it's still an open question whether
we begin selling Lumia 820 or 830 in the first quarter of 2013, and
we'll decide based on the overall success of the Windows Phone 8
platform."
Nokia's two new devices, the Lumia 920 and the mid-tier Lumia
820, both run an upgraded version of Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT)
Windows Phone 8 smartphone operating system.
At 1454 GMT the shares were trading up 6.5% at EUR2.06. The
stock is down 8.5% over the last week.
Write to Sven Grundberg at sven.grundberg@dowjones.com
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