Nokia, the world`s largest mobile phone maker, is expected to unveil by March a colour screen mobile phone to match an unexpectedly successful rival model from Ericsson, analysts said yesterday.
"A couple of industry contacts tell us a colour display version of the new 8310 phone is being developed by Nokia," said Peter Richardson, analyst at SoundView Technology Group.
"We expect an announcement quite soon," he told Reuters, adding sources said Nokia planned to start selling the device early in the second quarter.
Nokia spokesman Tapio Hedman declined to comment.
Several analysts Reuters spoke to have said they expect the Finnish company to plug a hole in its portfolio by unveiling a small colour screen device at its quarterly results release on 24 January, at the telecoms conference in Cannes in February or at the CeBIT show in Hanover in March.
Nokia -- known in the past for its skill in forecasting consumer trends -- was taken off guard by the immediate success of the Internet-enabled, tiny Ericsson T68 model, which came to the market late last year, industry experts say.
The T68 was the first colour screen cellphone for the European market.
"There is a gap in Nokia`s portfolio. They have been shaken by the strength in demand for the T68," Richardson said.
Ericsson, the Swedish telecoms equipment maker, has since 1 October merged its mobile phone division with Japan`s consumer electronics group Sony to create Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications.
Nokia holds around one-third of the global market for cellphones, more than double its nearest rival Motorola. Total cellphones sales are expected to have been around 400 million units in 2001, some 5% below 2000 sales.
The industry has been hit by a global economic slowdown, operators` reluctance to subsidise phones to win new customers and the lack of attractive new services to stimulate demand.
Nokia has already announced one colour screen phone, a digital camera phone called 7650, which will be on the market by the middle of this year, but it will be bulky and expensive and is an unlikely competitor to the small Ericsson T68.
Analysts believe Nokia`s new colour-screen phone, which will be squeezed into the product line before the 7650 model comes out, will be similar to the tiny 8310 monochrome screen model.
It is a recently introduced model that caters for the high-end consumer segment. It offers GPRS access and has an in-built FM radio and changeable covers.
GPRS, or General Packet Radio Services, allows users to get quick and constant Internet access, particularly in Europe.
"We think this product... addresses concerns that the 7650 will be too costly and too large to compete against slicker models like the T68," SoundView Technologies, which has a "strong buy" on Nokia, said in a research note.
Colour screens have become a huge success in Japan, the most advanced mobile Internet country, and their popularity is expected to grow in Europe partly because a colour display makes it more attractive to play games and use other functions, according to analysts.
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