The financial issues for the once mighty mobile phone maker Nokia may be continuing. As reported by Reuters, two unnamed sources have stated that the company is cutting the prices of its smartphones over in Europe as it tries to stop the slide of sales that are going over to phones that have Google"s Android operating system. Prices have been cut by 14 percent on phones such as the popular N8 phone, along with the C7 and E6 phones, according to the source. While the price cuts themselves are small, one of the sources told Reuters, " ... the scale -- across the portfolio -- has not been seen for a very, very long time." A Nokia spokesperson said that the price cuts were "part of its normal business."
Nokia"s overall market share of smartphone sales have dropped drastically in the past year from 39 percent a year ago to just 25.5 percent for the first quarter of 2011. In the UK, Nokia"s market share of smartphones has dropped to just 10.6 percent. The Finland-based company is in the process of dumping its in-house Symbian operating system in favor of releasing new phones based on Microsoft"s Windows Phone 7. The first Nokia phone with Microsoft"s mobile operating system is expected to launch in Europe later this year. However the news that Nokia has lost so much market share to Android phones and other devices has lead some financial analysts to predict that Nokia may not be able to recover, even with the launch of its WP7 devices.