(OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE)

At an event at Vodacom World, Nokia announced the arrival of the Lumia range of smartphones in South Africa.

The stunningly social Nokia Lumia 800 brings content to life with head-turning design, familiar Nokia elements such as leading imaging capabilities, and Nokia's best social and Internet performance with one-touch social network access, easy grouping of contacts, integrated communication threads and Internet Explorer 9. The Nokia Lumia 800 is expected to be available countrywide - together with Vodacom - on the 7th February 2012 on a Vodacom Business Call contract, with 100MB data per month for 24 months, at R279 per month.

The second device in the range, the colourful, affordable Nokia Lumia 710, is a no-nonsense smartphone that can be personalised with interchangeable back covers and thousands of apps, and brings the same Nokia Lumia experience to more people around the world. The Nokia Lumia 710 is expected to arrive in South Africa in the second quarter.

Based on the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango release, the Nokia Lumia smartphones are designed to appeal to people with lively social lives, providing instant social and image sharing and new signature Nokia experiences:

• Nokia Drive delivers a full-fledged personal navigation device (PND) with free, turn-by-turn navigation and dedicated in-car-user-interface.
• Nokia Music introduces MixRadio, a free, global, mobile music-streaming application that delivers 100s of channels of locally-relevant music. In an update delivered later this year, Nokia Lumia users will also gain the ability to create personalised channels from a global catalogue of millions of tracks.

Completing the ultimate mobile audio offering, Nokia also introduced the on-ear Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster, co-designed and co-developed by Monster Cable, a recognised leader in high performance audio. This is the first output of the exclusive long-term partnership between Nokia and Monster Cable, intended to introduce a range of premium audio accessories to reflect the outstanding quality and bold style of the Lumia range. The estimated retail price for the on-ear Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster is approximately R1 799, and should be available in a similar timeframe to the Nokia Lumia 800.