Nokia Tablets: Outgoing Chairman Jorma Ollila Promises Big New Products, Gives No Timeline

* Outgoing chairman Ollila promises tablet range -FT

* Siilasmaa to take over from Ollila later Thursday

* CEO Elop faces investors at annual meeting

HELSINKI/LONDON, May 3 (Reuters) - Nokia's outgoing Chairman Jorma Ollila promised a range of new products ahead of a meeting on Thursday with shareholders who are increasingly losing patience with the company's recovery efforts.

In an interview published on Thursday, Ollila told the Financial Times the Finnish company would launch a range of tablets and "hybrid" smart mobile devices, but did not say when.

Ollila, who will step down at the meeting after 27 years with the company, told the Financial Times that Nokia had been too slow at the start of the smartphone revolution, but said the combination of new products and Nokia services would help.

Nokia is widely expected to unveil its first tablet computer later this year when Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system becomes available.

The company has lost out to Apple Inc and Google Inc in the smartphone business and is now pinning hopes of a turnaround on Lumia, a new range of smartphones which use Microsoft software.

Once hailed as a national hero in Finland for transforming Nokia from a toilet paper-to-rubber boots conglomerate to the world's No 1 cellphone maker in 1998, Ollila has since come under criticism for neglecting the emergence of smartphones.

"Tablets are an important one, so that is being looked into, and there will be different hybrids, different form factors [handset designs] in the future," he said.

Sales of Nokia's new smartphone range have so far been slow and are yet to compensate for diving sales of previous products. Nokia also lost its position as the largest volume cellphone maker to Samsung Electronics last quarter.

Nokia executives are likely to face a grilling on these issues at Thursday's meeting. Investors have seen the value of their Nokia holding fall 90 percent in less than five years -- two-thirds of that since its new chief executive Stephen Elop unveiled the company's strategy shift to Microsoft in February 2011.

Most attendees are likely to be individual shareholders as institutional investors usually do not come to such meetings.

The meeting follows moves by ratings agencies Fitch and Standard & Poor's to cut Nokia's credit rating to "junk" status given its bleak outlook

Ollila will hand over his role to Risto Siilasmaa after the shareholders meeting. In a poll published by national broadcaster YLE last week, around 40 percent of analysts following the company rated his 13 years' work as chairman as 'poor' or 'unacceptable'.

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Comments

[xRAOULDUKEx]

04:12 PM on 05/03/2012

I almost got a Lumia 900 until It occurred to me how little I want a Windows phone.

[johnpet]

02:53 PM on 05/03/2012

NOkia

[NHBill]

01:02 PM on 05/03/2012

With 8.8% market share, Apple has 73% of cell phone profits
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/05/03/with-8-8-market-share-apple-has-73-of-cell-phone-profits/
"Among the major vendors, Samsung captured 26%, HTC took 1%, and the rest lost money. Remember: We're talking about all mobile phones, not just smartphones. And the entire worldwide market, not just the U.S."

If Nokia was going to amount to anything it would already be happening. HTC for instance at least has 1% of the money. There's enough time passed in the Smartphone universe to know who the losers are.

[draftdubya]

12:11 PM on 05/03/2012

I have a L900 and don't work for Microsoft nor Nokia.
/Deal with it

[RattleCat]

11:55 AM on 05/03/2012

LOL.  The outgoing chairman promises big things.

[Tom Hn]

11:32 AM on 05/03/2012

I would get a candy bar phone from Nokia, but never a smart phone.

[Flight]

11:23 AM on 05/03/2012

Love my Lumia 900... Kudos to Nokia for quickly identifying the initial software glitch that affected some areas (not me), and resolved it within 5 days. Still, they were also quick to offer a credit if you bought one which, in effect, made the phone FREE. Great business move, Nokia! Certainly, Apple hasn't done any of the aforementioned with any of it iPhone versions. They refuse to admit problems until forced to...which come much later, then they tell you to hold it a different way. Sadly, millions buy into that method.

[Tom Hn]

11:30 AM on 05/03/2012

You must work for Nokia for Microsoft because they give out this kinda phone for free to their employees.

[RattleCat]

11:39 AM on 05/03/2012

You may be right.  He's cut and paste that exact post on more than one article.

[plasmaorb]

10:56 AM on 05/03/2012

Nokia has never been an innovator... they need to just give it up. I had one Nokia phone and it was horrible. I havent seen anything from them that I would even consider getting in the past 5+ years.

[ware]

12:17 PM on 05/03/2012

Never an innovator? Are you sure? Have you heard of the Nokia Communicator 15 years ago? Have you seen Matrix? Which phone was Neo talking at when the bad guys came from him? Nokia 8110 was so innovative, it made Steve Jobs believe it is a banana :)

[plasmaorb]

06:19 PM on 05/03/2012

Ive seen the Matrix.. that was nothing but a cross promotion to sell phones.. it wasnt even a good phone.. it was over priced for what it was. just cause it had the name attached to the movie.... its like anything else that is attached to a movie... they pay money to get advertised.. just like Acura is doing with the Avengers and many other movies before that

[JRonin]

05:54 PM on 05/03/2012

The totally incorrect, Nokia practically invented the smartphone and dominated the industry for almost a decade. They had features on their phones modern smartphones still don't have. If you think Nokia didn't innovate you don't know what you're talking about, let's not get into revisionist history.

[plasmaorb]

06:18 PM on 05/03/2012

Where are they today? Stuck in a rut.. they never have had a phone i was impressed with.. maybe you are an NokiaFanBoy for all I know.. I just know the one my friend has right now is ju.nk... Nokia will be out of business in 2 years... HTC has taken over as the leader next to Apple... even as bad as the crackberries are, they are doing better than Nokia.