Nokia: regular WinPho handset releases through 2012

Nokia could be punching out Windows Phone handsets at the rate or one every two months, the company has said.

That seems excessive, but it's what Jo Harlow, Nokia's executive vice president of smart devices, said this week. Specifically, "we should be launching new devices in a rhythm that might be every couple of months, every three months, something like that".

Pushing new releases on a quarterly basis is what Nokia - and many of its rivals - have been doing for the past decade, so it's no great surprise the upcoming WinPho smartphones will follow the same cadence.

Nokia is pinning its future success on the Microsoft OS - which is due its first major update, Windows Phone 7.1 'Mango' in September - after effectively abandonning the ailing, behind-the-times Symbian. The Finnish phone giant's first WinPho handset will be out toward the end of this year.

After that, "[Nokia is] going to keep coming with new devices in order to have something to talk about", Harlow said, PC Magazine reports.

Nokia's support for WinPho will help drive the Microsoft OS' market share beyond Apple's, some analysts reckon. ®