Nokia CEO Admits Failure to Foresee Fast-changing Industry

Nokia (IW 1000/61) recently lost the world number one ranking it had held for 14 years as it attempts to survive on the rapidly changing landscape, with stiff competition from RiM's Blackberry, Apple's iPhone and handsets running Google's Android platform.

"We had moments in the past year and a half when we could have done some things differently had we known that the industry was changing so rapidly," Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop told Finnish national daily Aamulehti.

One example of Nokia's misreading of the markets "was the steep price decrease of Android phones in China," he said.

"It happened so fast that Nokia's situation has now become difficult, but we keep honing our strategy."

The company has been undergoing a major restructuring in the past 18 months, phasing out its Symbian line of smartphones in favor of a partnership with Microsoft.

It recently announced that massive new spending cuts and 10,000 more layoffs would be needed, in addition to the some 12,000 layoffs already announced in the past year and a half.

Adding to Nokia's problems was an announcement by Microsoft late last week that its Windows 8 upgrade would not work on Nokia's new flagship smartphone, the Lumia 900 model which it launched earlier this year.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012