A senior Nokia executive in charge of product marketing has left the company, after a launch event last month for the company’s new Lumia smartphones disappointed investors.<\/p>\n
Ilari Nurmi, who was vice president of product marketing and responsible for the company’s smartphone strategy, confirmed to Reuters in an email that he recently left the Finnish phone company.<\/p>\n
He did not make clear whether he left of his own accord, and the company declined to comment on the circumstances of his departure.<\/p>\n
He spoke to media last month when Nokia unveiled the Lumia 920, a top-of-the-range smartphone using Windows software. At the time, investors said they were disappointed by a lack of details such as launch dates and prices.<\/p>\n
The success of Lumia phones is widely seen crucial for Nokia as it struggles to compete with rivals Apple and Samsung.<\/p>\n
Once the world’s biggest mobile phone maker, Nokia fell behind rivals in smartphones and racked up more than 3 billion euros in operating losses in the past 18 months.<\/p>\n
It is pinning its hopes on a partnership with Microsoft Corp and its Windows Phone software, which powers around 3 percent of the global smartphone market while Google Inc’s Android platform controls two-thirds of sales. Apple has under a quarter.<\/p>\n
Nokia’s new Lumia smartphones will go on sale in November, taking on the iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S III ahead of the Christmas season, but some analysts said the prices for the colourful handsets looked high.<\/p>\n
The Lumia’s launch was also marred by news that one of the ads misled viewers. TheVerge.com first reported that a video ad coinciding with the Lumia announcement was in fact not shot with the 920, and the company subsequently apologized.<\/p>\n
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