Nokia China is going to hold an event on the 28th of March according to All About Windows Phone. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going to be announced at said event. Nokia’s been saying that they’re going to bring Windows Phones to the Chinese market in the first half of 2012 since they first showed off the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 at Nokia World back in October of last year. The fact that it’s finally happening, half a year later, warms out hearts since Nokia needs to make their smartphones available in as many countries as possible. The Finnish handset maker sold less than 1 million Lumia handsets in Q4 2011, which isn’t exactly promising, but it’s early days and things can only go up from here, right? Curiously a website known as CNMO.com found four Lumia smartphones that have recently gained regulatory approval in China: the Lumia 800, 800c, 710, and 719c. The 800 and 710 we’re already familiar with, the 800x and 719c are expected to be nothing more than CDMA variants.
What we want to know is when will Nokia bring devices like the Lumia 610 to China? Announced last month at Mobile World Congress, the 610 will cost roughly 185 EUR before taxes and subsidies. That’s almost 100 EUR less than Nokia’s current low end Windows Phone, the Lumia 710. China has plenty of rich people, we’ve all seen the insane lines at the Apple Store in Shanghai, but the majority of folks are your typical run of the mill middle class rural farmers who’ve packed their bags to move to the big city. They’re not the kind of people who buy high end smartphones. For them, something like the 400 EUR Lumia 800 is simply a pipedream.
All that being said, for all we know Nokia already has plans to bring the Lumia 610 to China, they’re likely just going to bring it over there later and focus on other (European?) countries first.