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innish cellphone maker Nokia has recently launched its latest Asha smartphone, the Nokia Asha 501, which is aimed at costumers looking to upgrade from feature phones. The sub-US$100 smartphone is claimed to be the best option among lower-priced devices as it is already equipped with popular applicationns including Facebook, CNN, Foursquare, Line, LinkedIn, Nimbuzz and Twitter, giving users the best possible mobile experience at an affordable price.

The Jakarta Post's Nurfika Osman talked to Nokia president & CEO Stephen Elop and Nokia head of mobile phones business in Asia Pacific Juha Ala-Laurila on the sidelines of the Asha 501 official launch in New Delhi, India, in order to get an insight into the brand new product and the firm's strategy for winning the current raging smartphone market war. Below are some excerpts from the interview:

Question: What does the Asha 501 offer customers and what kind of technology do you use in this new product?

Elop: What you'll see is a number of great innovations in this phone because elements of the Lumia [Nokia's high-end smartphone series] come with this lower price unit, with all of the promise of a Nokia device: durability, reliability and a battery life that lasts up to 48 days, not hours. So, that is a very important thing with the Asha 501. But, where you can really see the difference is the user experience because if you compare this to the previous Asha full-touch products we have taken a big step forward in terms of the contemporary nature of the experience, whether it is in the applications, icon grid, the fastlane capability, and it also works extremely quickly. We've also introduced elements like swipe-out, symbolic languages and so forth on this class of lower price device. So when you look at competing devices, this one is very different, gives a pleasant experience and is very powerful.

We could make this possible as we worked with our previous platform the Asha full touch and we introduced new layers of technology, this is from a company called Smarterphone that we acquired [in 2012], which creates an environment that allows you to have this type of smart phone experience on very low-cost hardware and able to deliver an amazing experience with a 48-day battery life. The platform is called the new Asha platform, which is an evolution of the S40.

In addition, we are very proud of our Facebook announcement that enables people to access Facebook for free on certain operators. That is a program that we are going to push and extend, and we are going to take advantage of something that really helps the person who uses the device. It is good for everyone and the business as well.

Who are the customers that you want to tap with this new smartphone?

Elop: There are several groups of people. There are certainly people today who are using traditional feature phones who can move into their first smartphones experience with the [Asha] 501. Then there may be people on Asha full touch today that say,'I am ready for the next device,' because we started this line in October 2011, so it is a year and a half and it will almost be two years. It is also the case with this price point; we will see some first-time buyers who are looking for their first digital experience. And of course, we are very happy to attract people from other operating systems who are looking at similar devices saying; 'Oh, it's touch screen, it's slow, it does not have much memory...' those people will be happy to switch to the 501.

How strong is the potential market for this new Asha product in Indonesia?

Elop: Yes, we will be coming to Indonesia and our early large markets are tending to be in the emerging markets like India, parts of the Middle East, Latin America, Indonesia, Asia Pacific, and so forth.

Ala-Laurila: Indonesia is actually our key market across the Asia Pacific region, and the new Asha is going to win in that market. By looking at our current success with the Asha line in your country, we are optimistic of repeating our sucess story again. We will also work with Telkomsel, which has been very powerful in Indonesia in marketing this product. So, it is clear that Indonesia is at the core of Asia Pacific.

When will you launch the Asha 501 in Indonesia?

Ala-Laurila: We are going to launch it during the summer and there should be further announcements before we officially launch it.

How does Nokia support local apps developers, particularly in Indonesia?

Elop: Nokia is very focused on enabling developers on a local basis. So for example, whether it is in Indonesia, Thailand, or India, we have teams of people who are working with local developers. We sit in rooms, we help to train them, we help them to understand what applications work well, and how to take advantage of our platform.

But part of it, we are also trying to create an environment to increase their success. Many people will build applications locally and will be asking 'How can I take that to the world?' Through the Nokia store, we can help them do that because of our good application environment, we can give them feasibility.

So, we have always focused very heavily on local developers both to build locally relevant apps and help them get a global perspective as well.

Ala-Laurila: Inspired by supporting Indonesian developers, with the Asha 501 we have a special program in order to help indonesian application developers. As you know with the current Asha, we have MIG33, Kompas et cetera, those will be the key apps available as the sales [of Asha 501] start, and within a few months we will have 90 percent of the current top Asha apps. In addition, we will have the monetization programs that will help them to increase their standards and revenues with the new platform.