Nokia set for major US expansion with five new budget phones and two new wireless partners
HMD Global’s news for the doomedCES 2022show concerns what is its biggest US expansion since it started making Nokia-branded phones back in 2016. Not only is the Finnish company releasing five brand-new smartphones — all budget devices under $250 — but it’s also announcing two major new wireless partnerships with Dish and Consumer Cellular. These phones may not be the most exciting products around, but the intent is clear. HMD sees an opportunity to grow its US business and it’s going all out in 2022.
The budget phone market in the US is already fairly competitive, with brands like Samsung, Motorola, and OnePlus all offering cut-price models that do the job without many bells and whistles. Even so, HMD Global is going to take them on with the cheap as chips 5G-equipped Nokia G400, as well as three 4G models: C100, C200, and G100. As usual, there’s a feature phone thrown in for good measure — the Nokia 2760 Flip from the company’s Originals line is a dose of pure flipping nostalgia.
HMD says it’s “captured market share from some of the industry’s most entrenched companies” over the last six months, and it would very much like to continue that trend. The new partnerships with Dish Wireless and Consumer Cellular will broaden the visibility and reach of the Nokia range, adding to pre-existing deals with T-Mobile and TracFone. We don’t have many details on the new phones in terms of specs, but availability and pricing information can be found below and more information will be released nearer launch.
As expected, these are aggressively priced, though we won’t really know how they stack up until we get the full spec picture. We’ll add more information when we get it. The most recent Nokia device we reviewed is surprisingly a tablet, and, even more surprisingly,the T20 is actually pretty good.
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