Yahoo has announced the beginning of cooperation with the Finnish mobile giant – Nokia corporation. The aim of  the cooperation is the introduction of Yahoo network services into Nokia mobile phones. The project is symbolically called Nike in honour of the Greek goddess of victory. The press-service of Yahoo company has not yet divulged details of the transaction, but on Monday an official press conference should be held, where plans of the cooperation will be presented.

The close cooperation with Nokia will enable Yahoo to confront the global market leader of search engines – Google – in the market of mobile platforms. Google owns its own Android operating system, that gives it the opportunity to promote its mobile services as quickly as possible. Previously Yahoo did not have such possibility, Nokia mobile phones will become an extensive ground for  this kind of future actions for Yahoo.

Nokia will also benefit from the deal, the expansion of the list of network services for its mobile phones will allow to stand against the major competitors: Apple, Google and RIM. The owners of the Finnish mobile phone manufacturer will soon be able to evaluate all the innovations.

Only a few days ago Nokia has renewed contracts for the supply of mobile phones in China. The company has signed two new contracts totaling nearly $ 2 billion with two major Chinese distributors. In the statement, Nokia said that China PTAC company will buy phones in the coming year for 741 million euros, or $ 1 billion, roughly the same amount of purchases will be implemented by another Chinese vendor – Telling Telecom Holding.

The company said that the peculiarity of the Chinese vendors is that they operate on annual contracts, pre-specifying lines of payment and shipment of products. In most countries, Nokia, like other manufacturers of handsets, operate on the fact. Meanwhile the company has been cooperating for several years with the Chinese vendors on such a scheme. And so far the cooperation was rather fruitful.

Last year, Nokia signed a contract  only with China PTAC of about 1.7 billion dollars.

Independent analysts say that since 2007 the volume of contracts of Nokia in China are falling, but packages of orders from other major manufacturers also fall. On the one hand, this reflects the impact of the global crisis, but on the other hand it is a sign of growing competition in the market of cellular phones.

Nokia says that the share of Mainland China accounts for about 16% of global sales. Experts from the brokerage FIM say that over the past two years Nokia is faced with increasing competition from Apple and Research in Motion in Asia.

Nokia company has announced the launch of a line of Cseries devices, which will include models which are rich in features and affordable. Nokia C5 smartphone opens the new series, based on the platform of S60 third edition.

At the end of last year, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said that next year the company would present many new smart phones at affordable prices. Today Nokia keeps that promise starting the line of the budget phones Nokia Cseries. Let us remind that the company’s portfolio already includes a line of Nseries, Eseries and Xseries. Nseries include devices with maximum functionality, oriented for “geeks” and, consequently, most expensive, Eseries include devices optimized for e-mail and messaging, mainly oriented at corporate users. Xseries include multimedia devices for active audience. Cseries will also include low-cost feature-rich devices, oriented at the mass market. HTC successfully launches devices with similar positioning, for example Tattoo.

Nokia C5 opens the new line, made in a classic form-factor and based on the platform of the S60 third edition. It is equipped with a 2.2-inch screen with resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, a 3.2-megapixel camera, a 3,5 mm AV jack, radio, GPS-receiver and support for third-generation networks. Nokia stresses that this model is equipped with a free step by step and automotive navigation, but this is not its unique feature – the appropriate application (Ovi Maps 3) works on other devices.

The phone book of Nokia C5 allows you to see the status of contacts in the Facebook social network, and the home screen allows you to place a link to three friends for quick access to functions such as voice calls and messages. There are applications for direct access to Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and other sites.

Nokia Messaging service allows you to automatically receive text messages from different email accounts and messaging services. Mail, however, can be obtained without Nokia Messaging – mobile phone is provided with applications to work with the email by protocols POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP. Work time of Nokia C5 in offline regime is up to 12 hours of talk time and up to 26 days in standby mode.

The smartphone will be available in white and gray colours and will be on sale in the 2nd quarter of 2010 for a suggested retail price of €135 excluding taxes. MicroSD memory card capacity of 2 GB will be included in the device. The maximum supported memory card size in thr mobile phone is 16 GB. In the future, other smartphones of the series will be produced, while the number five in the labeling of products means that the current device will be based on functionality for the middle model line.

Nokia’s share of volume shipments of mobile phones, according to Gartner, last year decreased to 36.4% compared to 38.6% in 2008. According to the results, the company sold about 441 million cell phones, which is 2.2 percentage points less compared to 2008. In order to strengthen its position in the global market, last year Nokia announced about its intention to reduce the range of models and begin producing more affordable smartphones. In addition, the company signed an agreement with Intel, within the frames of which Maemo and Moblin open software platforms were merged into the MeeGo project. According to analysts, the effect of this transaction will manifest itself not early than the second half of 2010.