China welcomes the Nokia 800 with a big Ni Hao

In case you’ve been living under a rock or indulging yourself in self importance you’ll forgive me if I don’t spew a bit of hyperbole. You see Nokia has partnered with China Telecom to launch the Lumia 800C, denoted for China, into the largest market in the world. It’s a key play because Nokia is bringing an essential local experience and a beautiful form factor to a market that is expanding by the day and when your market is a billion strong then that is important. The importance of the Lumia 800c being localized to China is the most popular services that locals use are present. This is a big deal as it means that there should be far less gray market imports of other phones and losing the local connection and services.

Wang Xiaochu, Chairman of China Telecom, said the launch represented “Optimism and excitement for the future of Windows Phone and Nokia Lumia in China.

”China Telecom’s mobile market in China is bigger than Verizon in the U.S. – and, according to research by Strategy Analytics, over 32 million smartphones were sold in China in the last quarter. We estimate that’s a massive rate of four smartphones per second.”

This promises to be only the start of the Nokia Lumia experience in China, with the launch later in Q2 of the Nokia 610C, aimed at younger users.

In addition, Nokia and Microsoft has announced the ‘Be Top’ program which is geared to spur the development of Windows Phone apps specifically for the Chinese market. Nothing like a little home cooking right.

Source: Conversations by Nokia