Nokia unveils new Lumia smartphone

Nokia brushed off recent speculation about the future of its deal with Microsoft as it introduced what it described as "the most innovative smartphone" to its Lumia Windows Phone product line.

The company, which faced questions from shareholders last week, debuted the Nokia Lumia 925, which has a metal design and an improved camera.

The device, which is expected to ship next month and cost around € 469, has a metal band that doubles as an antenna and an improved camera that performs better in low light and offers technology that improves the sound quality on video clips.

“The mgaic is not in the engineering; it’s the balance between the lens, the sensors, the software to deliver great lowlight pictures,” said Nokia’s executive vice president of smart devices Jo Harlow.

The Lumia 925 also includes software that allows users to capture 10 photographs at once and edit them to erase moving objects, add motion blur and create ation shots. The Smart Camera application will also be made available to other Windows Phone 8 Lumia handsets, through a firmware update.

The Lumia 925 will also facilitate wireless charging, through snap-on covers.

Details about the Lumia 925 had already leaked ahead of the event in London today, after photograph of the new handset appeared online. It gave away the decision to include some metal elements in the casing, as well as the existance of the Smart Camera app.

Once the king of the smartphone, the Finnish company has seen its fortunes wane in recent years as rivals such as Apple and Samsung overtook it in sales. Nokia needs a hit smartphone to try to cement its position in the smartphone market again.

The company has a tough battle ahead. New research from Gartner showed that Nokia had lost market share in the first quarter of the year, declining by 5 per cent.

Nokia made the decision in 2011 to switch its focus from its own Symbian operating system to Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. The decision has left Nokia trailing in the smartphone market, selling 5.1 million Lumia handsets in the last quarter. However, that pales in comparison with Apple and Samsung quarterly sales figures for smartphones, which reached 38.3 million and 64.7 million respectively.

“Although Nokia’s Windows Phone sales have sequentially improved reaching a volume of 5.1 million units, Nokia is yet to see high growth in the smartphone segment,” Gartner said.

“Nokia’s position in the smartphone market dropped to number 10 in the first quarter of 2013, from number eight in the fourth quarter of 2012.”

At the company's annual general meeting last week, shareholders expressed their frustration with Nokia's progress and told chief executive Stephen Elop the company was "on the road to hell".

Mr Elop, a former Microsoft executive, told shareholders at the meeting that Nokia has made the “clear decision” to focus on Windows Phone, and appeared to close the door to a possible linkup with Android.

Nokia’s share prices has plummeted to under € 3 in recent years, after hitting a peak of € 65 in 2000.