It’s been months, actually close to a year, since the first dual-SIM of Nokia was announced but the handset has not yet seen the light of day. The Nokia C2-00 has not yet been released in the Philippines and no word when it will be out (so sorry to all those who have been asking for months now).
The Nokia C2-00 is probably the the first Nokia unit to have a huge gap or delay between announcement and actual release in the market (clocking in at 12 months and counting).
The unit is pretty simple in terms of specs — Bluetooth, VGA camera, WAP browsing and GPRS with the FM tuner capable of FM recording. Both SIM cards are active with one of the slots hot-swappable (can be switched or replaced anytime even while the phone is turned on).
People have been asking — so, what’s the hold-out? Can’t really be sure but I have a number of plausible reasons.
- Nokia decided it’s not going to slug it out in the dual-SIM market. Not because they think they are too late (Samsung and LG has only recently released their own dual-SIM phones) but because they think the potential markets are regions they are already market-leader (like the Philippines) and it will only disrupt their own numbers.
- The Nokia C1-00, another dual-SIM but not both are active at the same time, will do for the meantime. The unit has been released in the Philippines since September 2010. I guess Nokia is still tracking the sales performance of this one and it does affect their sales of other similarly-priced handsets.
- The handset has been completely shelved or held-up indefinitely. It’s possible some executive, high up in Nokia, has blocked the release of this unit. Nokia became #1 worldwide without any dual-SIM phones and it will continue to be #1 without it. That’s just on top of my head.
It’s really puzzling why Nokia has indefinitely delayed the release of their first active dual-SIM phone. We’ll have to ask someone high up from inside the company.
Update: We got a note from Nokia Philippines the same day we posted this and invited me to see the “preview” units of the C2-00 and X1-01. See more details about it here.
My sim 2 is not getting activated. I have airtel in sim1 and vodafone in sim 2 whenever i switch on only sim1 is active. Sim 2 says it has no sim. but i have already inserted in sim 2.why is this problem occuring
ulol ka!