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Vertu Mobile Telephones | Vertu Mobiles | Vertu Concierge Service | Luxury Lifestyle Essentials | Vertu
Forget the custom-made Snoopy phone cover, the future of mobiles for the wealthy lies in high-cost, high-fashion handsets. Nokia is setting up a subsidiary called Vertu to make luxury phones for the seriously loaded. Top-of-the-range phones are not new. Ericsson has made gold-plated versions of its phones and Motorola has upgraded some of its handsets to appeal to wealthy customers.
With Vertu, Nokia is going one step further. It aims to create mobile phones that, one day, could be regarded as expensive antiques.
Upgradeable insides
The phone will come in a variety of precious metals, boasts a sapphire face and leather sides.
Creative director and designer Frank Nuova stresses that the phone's internal mechanism will also be of the highest quality.
The handsets will have a special key to connect the user to a "concierge service" for booking theatre tickets and for satisfying other demands.
With the mobile phone industry struggling in the wake of a global downturn and facing an already saturated market, manufacturers will increasingly turn to niche markets to make money, believes Paulo Pescatore from research firm IDC.
"The market in Europe is very mature and firms are looking at handset replacement rather than going after new customers," he said. "The question is how do you get people to upgrade?"
A bejewelled phone could be one option.
The fact that Vertu was going to have 200 employees and be headed up by Nokia's top designer Frank Nuovo showed a serious commitment to the luxury market, said Ben Wood, a mobile phone analyst from the Gartner Group.
"No-one has placed such a high commitment before and it has to be about more than selling £15,000 phones. Our belief is that down the line, it will look at premium phones made with high-quality materials but cheaper," he said.