For those that don’t know, Saudi Arabia is one of the top 5 countries in the world for smartphone penetration at 60%. Most of those people still use a Blackberry device of some kind so if I were the CEO of Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) I would be looking to some Saudi sheik to buy the company and preserve the one market where they still have a strong presence. Be that as it may, Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and Siemens (NYSE:SI), who have a joint partnership in mobile communications technology, announced that they have signed a deal with Saudi Mobile carrier Zain to bring 4G coverage to their subscriber base.
In a country where Windows Phone has just 4% market share this would be a perfect opportunity for the parent company, Nokia, to swoop in and grab all of those Saudis that will be replacing their phones over the next 12 months now that RIMM has officially gone on death watch. Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android only has 11% of the market while Blackberry and iOS battle it out for most of the hearts and minds. The Lumia 800/900 phones are 2 of the best 4G phones on the market right now, supporting all iterations of the protocol.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), it is rumored, will release Windows Phone 8 to manufacturers on June 20th at the Windows Phone Summit which would make it clear what the schedule is for Win 8 phones and 4G tablets will be, namely that things are on schedule for a late September/October release.
Nokia’s stock was up on Tuesday by as much as 4%, trading solidly above $2.80
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