Lagerfeld says Ghesquiere with Arnault “not bad idea”

PARIS (Reuters) – Star designer Karl Lagerfeld said the departure of Nicolas Ghesquiere from Balenciaga as artistic director to create his own brand with backing from LVMH‘s Bernard Arnault would “not be a bad idea” as the group owned many old labels.

“Perhaps Nicolas wants to have his own label, which is not a bad idea,” Lagerfeld told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

“And it would not be a bad idea if somebody such as Bernard Arnault would invest in a new label because there are so many old labels (within the LVMH group),” Lagerfeld said about the chief executive of the world’s biggest luxury group.

PPR, the French group which owns Balenciaga, shocked the fashion world by announcing this week the departure of Ghesquiere, who had been with the brand since 1997 and was the main architect of its revival.

The International Herald Tribune reported this week that one option for Ghesquiere was to create his own brand with the backing of Arnault, who controls LVMH, the world’s biggest luxury group, which owns many fashion brands including Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Celine.

Founded by Cristobal Balenciaga in 1919, his eponymous brand thrived until the late 1960s and then lay dormant until Ghesquiere took over as designer. The brand started to expand worldwide after PPR acquired it in 2001.

Balenciaga did not explain Ghesquiere’s departure clearly when it made the announcement on Monday but it suggested the designer was longing for a new creative adventure.

Lagerfeld, who runs his own brand on top of working as artistic director for LVMH’s Fendi and for privately owned Chanel, said he could not think about the succession.

“We (my team and I) only think in terms of one collection after the next collection,” he said. “In fashion, I am very much against projection in the far away future.”

Lagerfeld was speaking at the opening of an exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris of his photos of celebrities themed around Chanel’s “little black jacket,” who were styled by Carine Roitfeld, former editor of the French Vogue.

The celebrities include artist Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s widow, film maker Sofia Coppola and actresses Kirsten Dunst and Milla Jojovich.

“I am happy I can do both fashion and photography because there is a link between the two but it is a link which I refuse to analyze,” Lagerfeld said.

PAVLOVSKY

Also present at the exhibition’s opening was Bruno Pavlovsky, president of Chanel’s fashion division, who like Lagerfeld would not be drawn too long on the subject of the designer’s succession.

“Karl is in great shape, I work every day with him and I can assure you that he is doing very well,” Pavlovsky said, adding that relations between Chanel and him had always been excellent.

“Of course one day there will be an after-Karl but Karl will have made Chanel so strong, with such strong codes that Chanel will find solutions,” Pavlovsky said.

The executive said Chanel, owned by the Wertheimer family, was doing well overall and expected 2012 to be another “good year” in spite of the global downturn which has affected many of its rivals including LVMH, Burberry and Gucci owner PPR.

However, he said the Chinese market was becoming more mature with growth levels in big cities such as Shanghai or Beijing becoming similar to that of European capitals or New York where Chanel has been for decades.

“We are no longer in the 20-30 percent growth levels we had seen (in previous years in China),” he said. “It can be more than 10 percent,” he said, referring to growth levels in big European cities.

Pavlovsky said Chanel planned to finish the year with 10 boutiques in China and 182 globally.

(Reporting by Astrid Wendlandt; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Home blood pressure monitors show mixed results: study

(Reuters) – Home blood pressure monitors may be useful to some older adults who have suffered a stroke, but little help to others, according to a UK study.

Past studies have found that home monitoring may aid blood pressure control, with a 2010 review of 37 clinical trials finding that, overall, people who used monitors shaved a few extra points from their blood pressure. They were also more likely to cut down on medication.

The new study, which appeared in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, focused on patients who’d recently had a stroke – a group that hasn’t really been studied when it comes to home blood pressure monitoring.

“Overall, home monitoring did not improve blood pressure control in patients with hypertension and a history of stroke,” wrote lead researcher Sally Kerry, a researcher at Queen Mary, University of London.

The exception, though, was patients whose blood pressure was poorly controlled at the study’s start, meaning it was above the standard high blood pressure cutoff of 140/90 mm Hg.

In that case, patients given a home monitor cut an average of 11 points from their systolic blood pressure – the top number in the reading. That compared with just under five points among patients who were not given the devices.

Kerry’s team randomly assigned the patients to either stick with standard care only or get a home monitor, along with instructions on how to use it and periodic phone calls from a nurse to check on how they were doing.

Over the next year, the results were mixed. Among the patients who didn’t seem to benefit were those who’d been left disabled by their stroke, while non-disabled patients cut about four points.

“Some patients had difficulty carrying out monitoring because they did not have a carer who lived with them to help,” said Kerry.

Many people with high blood pressure already have home monitors, and these findings don’t mean that stroke survivors can’t benefit, although a person left disabled by a stroke may be “not the best” candidate, said Hayden Bosworth, a professor of medicine at Duke University, who was not part of the study.

And for a monitor to benefit anyone, the numbers have to be put to good use, he added. That means a healthcare provider has to know what they are and make any needed adjustments to a patient’s medications.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/STMwU2

(Reporting from New York by Amy Norton at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

The Loneliness of David Cameron

Inside his 10 Downing Street office, David Cameron has surrounded himself with friends of two decades or more—contemporaries from his time at Eton and Oxford and his early days as a political researcher. Once he steps outside his front door, the 46-year-old prime minister’s life is lonelier. In Parliament lawmakers from his Conservative Party are rebelling in unprecedented numbers and with increasing frequency. Conservative newspapers, which once feted him, have turned hostile. If there were an election tomorrow, voters say they’d back the Labour Party, which enjoys a 10-point advantage in the polls.

Cameron’s signature policy—an austerity plan meant to wipe out the structural budget deficit by the 2015 election—has caused pain among voters and is certain to cause more. The government will have implemented £37 billion ($ 59.11 billion), less than a third of the £126 billion of cuts planned, by the end of the fiscal year. Welfare payments for housing have been capped, forcing some poor people to move out of expensive areas such as London. Pay has been frozen for police, teachers, nurses, doctors, and other public-sector workers.

The success of the austerity plan depended on the economy returning to a growth rate of 2.3 percent in 2011 and 2.8 percent in 2012. It didn’t; the economy is only now emerging from a double-dip recession. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research forecast on Nov. 2 that the economy in 2013 will be 5.3 percent smaller than forecast in 2010. The deficit-elimination target has been pushed back to the fiscal year ending April 2017. That means the government will go into the 2015 election promising further spending cuts and tax hikes.

On Oct. 31, Cameron suffered his first House of Commons defeat at the hands of his own party’s lawmakers on a vote over contributing to the European Union budget. In a vote designed to embarrass Cameron, Tory MPs wanted him to call for a cut in the budget. Cameron argued that calling for a budget freeze was more realistic. It was eight years before former Tony Blair lost a vote; it’s taken Cameron two. “On the specific issue of Europe, Conservatives in this Parliament are the most rebellious since dinosaurs ruled the earth,” says Philip Cowley, professor of politics at the University of Nottingham. “But it’s not just Europe. He’s retreated on a series of issues where he would have been defeated.”

The setback with the greatest impact may be Cameron’s abandonment of plans to introduce elections to the House of Lords. Although a popularly elected upper house has long been a cherished policy goal of his coalition allies, the Liberal Democrats, Cameron dropped the effort in the face of opposition from Tory traditionalists. In retaliation, the Liberal Democrats said they’d block a redrawing of electoral boundaries, which at the moment favor Labour. Evening up the sizes of districts would have helped the Conservatives win more seats, but Cameron will have to campaign in the next election with the same handicap that helped cost him a majority in 2010.

Cameron’s aloofness hurts his cause. Speaking of Parliament and its members, Cowley asks, “How often is he in the tea rooms? Does he talk to them in the corridors? The answer is no.”

According to Tim Bale, author of The Conservatives Since 1945, Cameron’s loyalty to his friends and his meteoric rise through his party to become leader at the age of 39 contribute to his alienation from other Tory lawmakers. “It’s admirable that he doesn’t let people go and move on, but that means other people think there’s no room for them in his circle,” Bale says. “If he’d spent 10 years in the lower reaches of the party, he might have had time to meet more people from different parts of the country and different backgrounds.”

Andy Coulson was one of the few who managed to get into the inner circle without having known the young Cameron. The working-class former editor of the News of the World, hired as Cameron’s press chief in 2007, quickly acquired trusted status. Coulson resigned from Downing Street at the beginning of 2011 as the hacking scandal at his former paper deepened. On the day his former aide was arrested, in July of that year, Cameron told reporters that Coulson “became a friend and is a friend.”

Cameron’s response to that scandal—to set up a media ethics inquiry—has angered Conservative-supporting papers. News Corp.’s (NWS) Sun newspaper supported the Conservatives in the 2010 election. Since the arrest of at least 10 of its journalists for alleged bribery, it has been hostile to Cameron, and in October it helped force the resignation of a member of Cameron’s cabinet, Andrew Mitchell, after he swore at a policeman guarding Downing Street.

A Populus survey in September found voters frequently describing Cameron as “out of touch” and “arrogant.” On the positive side, they were less likely to describe him as “out of his depth” than they were the leaders of Britain’s other two main parties. Nonetheless, the prime minister is holding fewer of the “Cameron Direct” town hall events that he did almost weekly when the Conservatives were in opposition and regularly in the early days of his premiership.

For all his problems, Cameron has one faithful friend: the bond market. Helped by the Bank of England’s debt purchase program, the yield on Britain’s 10-year bond is around 1.75 percent, a third that of Spanish debt. He also has two and a half years until the next election, and if the economy recovers his fortunes will improve.

Cameron’s options for now remain limited. The government can’t afford tax cuts. His Liberal Democrat coalition allies block anything he might do that would appeal to his party’s lawmakers and traditional supporters, such as tougher immigration laws. Conservative Party lawmakers have put Cameron on notice that they have the numbers and will to defy him if he softens his position on hot-button issues such as further integration with Europe. The prime minister needs a new strategy if he’s to widen his circle of friends.

The bottom line: Cameron still has to cut £89 million from the budget to eliminate the deficit. Voters and party members are getting restless.

Businessweek.com — Top News

Read More..

Merkel says Germany, Britain must work together on EU

LONDON (Reuters) – Germany and Britain must cooperate to work round their differences on the European Union‘s long-term spending plans, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday.

“Despite differences that we have it is very important for me that the UK and Germany work together,” Merkel said through a translator before a meeting in London with Prime Minister David Cameron to discuss the EU‘s 2014-2020 budget.

“We always have to do something that will stand up to public opinion back home. Not all of the expenditure that has been earmarked has been used with great efficiency … We need to address that,” she said.

EU leaders meet in Brussels on November 22-23 to try to secure a seven-year budget for the 27-nation bloc amid signs of differences of opinion over what action should be taken.

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Europe News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Youth support drives passage of California tax-hike measure

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California‘s 74-year-old governor, Jerry Brown, engineered a surprise victory for his tax-hike ballot proposition by tapping support at the other end of the age spectrum.

Proposition 30, a temporary $ 6 billion tax hike, passed with a solid 54 percent approval on Tuesday, driven largely by a higher-than-expected turnout of young voters, pollsters and analysts say.

The measure, a rare attempt by a state to raise taxes at a time of small-government fervor, was the cornerstone of Brown’s plan to balance the state’s $ 91 billion budget. Without it, the state would have to cut spending on schools and universities.

But in recent days, the proposition had seemed destined for failure, according to several polls. Brown, who began campaigning heavily for it in the last weeks of the election, held rallies at colleges, and many younger voters responded.

“It’s the reversal of a historic trend,” said Dan Schnur, director of the University of Southern California/Los Angeles Times poll, speaking about the normal difficulty of winning support for a tax measure in the waning days of a campaign. At the end of October, his poll showed only 46 percent of voters for the measure.

Young people made up about 28 percent of those who voted on Proposition 30, according to an exit poll from CNN, and 65 percent of them voted yes.

“We saw this amazing engagement that was fed by social media, on Facebook, on Twitter,” said Scott Lay, president of the Community College League of California, an advocacy group.

The ability for the first time to complete the entire voter-registration process online contributed to the passage of the measure, he believes, because “young voters who registered online were more engaged.”

As election day neared, polls from the Public Policy Institute of California, the California Business Roundtable with Pepperdine University, and the respected Field Poll, all showed less-than-majority support for Prop 30, and at best they labeled its chances a toss-up.

But Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll, saw signs Brown could persuade undecided voters and told several reporters ahead of the election that Proposition 30 had a shot.

He cited data in his poll showing that undecided voters shared many characteristics with voters who favored Proposition 30, including a favorable view of Brown, a sense that they were paying about the right amount in taxes, and concern over budget cuts that could kick in if the measure failed.

“If you looked at the 14 percent that were undecided, they held views that were more in line with “Yes” voters,” said DiCamillo. “All it needed was about three points from the undecided.”

Brown’s push in recent days for the initiative undoubtedly helped, including his visits to colleges and his attendance at a group of last-minute events, the pollsters said. On Monday, for example, Brown touted the measure at gatherings in San Diego, Burbank, Fresno, Sacramento and San Francisco.

(Editing by Peter Henderson and Philip Barbara)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Country duo Civil Wars cancel tour, cite discord

LONDON (Reuters) – Grammy Award-winning country-folk duo The Civil Wars have cancelled their British tour dates, citing “irreconcilable differences” via Twitter and Facebook.

The pair made the announcement shortly after performing at the Roundhouse in north London late on Tuesday, but they added that they hoped to record together soon.

“We sincerely apologize for the canceling of all of our tour dates,” said the band, which comprises Joy Williams and John Paul White.

“It is something we deeply regret. However, due to internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition we are unable to continue as a touring entity at this time … Our sincere hope is to have new music for you in 2013.”

The band said it would “do its best” to reimburse fans who had made travel reservations to see them.

The Civil Wars released their debut studio album “Barton Hollow” last year and went on to scoop two Grammy Awards – the highest prize in music – for best folk album and best country duo/group performance.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Los Angeles mandates condoms for porn actors, industry threatens suit

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Los Angeles County voters passed a ballot initiative mandating that pornographic film actors wear condoms during sex scenes, prompting a trade group on Wednesday to threaten to sue and take production elsewhere.

Measure B, which was sponsored by the group AIDS Healthcare Foundation, won approval on Tuesday by a margin of 55.85 percent to 44.15 percent, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office.

“This is what democracy looks like; we took this to county government, and they didn’t act so we took it directly to the voters, and they spoke conclusively,” AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein said.

The law requires adult film actors filming in Los Angeles County to use condoms during sex scenes. Most U.S. pornographic productions are made in the county’s San Fernando Valley.

Diane Duke, chief executive for the industry group Free Speech Coalition, told Los Angeles County supervisors in a letter on Wednesday that the law was unconstitutional and that it fell under state jurisdiction, not that of local government.

“Therefore, we will file suit and challenge this intolerable law in court,” Duke said in the letter. A copy was provided to Reuters.

She said the adult filmmakers had been approached to move elsewhere, adding: “In the upcoming weeks and months, we will provide a roadmap for adult production to move its over a billion dollar industry and its accompanying 10,000 jobs to these welcoming communities.”

David Sommers, a spokesman for the Board of Supervisors, declined to respond specifically to the letter, saying he had not read it. He said county health officials were still grappling with the law’s implications.

“This type of enforcement is a new thing for us and it’s a one-of-a-kind law and so how we move forward with its implementation is a conversation we’re just beginning to have given how the voters decided Measure B,” he said.

The initiative requires porn producers to get a health permit from Los Angeles County to make their movies showing explicit sex and nudity. Using condoms on set would be a condition of obtaining that permit.

California workplace laws mandate the use of condoms by porn performers, but AIDS Healthcare officials say the statute is not specifically aimed at the industry and is widely violated.

The Free Speech Coalition said in its letter that such requirements would impose “excessive costs of compliance.”

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Sexual Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Walmart moves “Black Friday” earlier on Thanksgiving night

(Reuters) – Walmart will kick off its holiday sales rush at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, its earliest start ever, and will guarantee that those who line up can buy a trio of gadgets as it places a big bet that shoppers are ready to spend this holiday season.

The holiday season is critical for Wal-Mart Stores Inc , the world’s largest retailer, and its Walmart U.S. division. More than a quarter of its annual sales come during the holiday season.

“We bought deep, very deep, and we bought deep on items that matter to our customers,” said Walmart U.S. Chief Merchandising and Marketing Officer Duncan Mac Naughton.

Retailers are coming up with fresh ways to entice shoppers this year, as holiday spending is only expected to rise 4.1 percent, according to the National Retail Federation, down from 5.6 percent growth in 2011.

Walmart kicked off layaway a month earlier than last year, in mid-September. Layaway allows shoppers to keep a product on hold at the store and pay for it over time. Chains such as Walmart and Target have already published toy catalogs.

While the holiday shopping season traditionally kicks off on the day after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday, the push to sell Christmas presents and other items has been moving earlier and earlier in recent years.

Retailers say that shoppers want earlier deals.

“‘We got customer feedback that says ‘I like to shop earlier so I can go to bed earlier,’” Mac Naughton said.

Thanksgiving will be observed on November 22 this year.

SPECIAL OFFERS

At 8 p.m. local time on Thanksgiving, Walmart‘s offers will include deals on video games starting at $ 10 and home appliances such as a Crock Pot slow cooker and a Mr. Coffee maker for $ 9.44 each.

Walmart also said it would guarantee that three items will be available that night to people standing in line in its stores between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Thanksgiving, though the items are not among the hottest new gadgets of the year.

Those shoppers are guaranteed access to an Apple iPad 2 16GB with Wi-Fi, a March 2011 version, priced at $ 399 with a $ 75 Walmart Gift Card; a 32-inch Emerson 720p LCD TV at $ 148, $ 80 below the usual price; and an LG Blu-ray player for $ 38 that Walmart does not typically sell but said goes for $ 68 to $ 79 elsewhere.

After a round of specials focused on electronics at 10 p.m. Walmart will take a break from special deals, giving shoppers a chance to get some rest or perhaps visit other stores.

Walmart now keeps its stores open overnight between Thanksgiving and Black Friday after an employee was trampled to death when a Long Island store opened on Black Friday in 2008.

Last year, key competitors including Target Corp began their special offers at 12 a.m. on Friday.

Other items to be offered during the night include brands such as Vizio, Samsung, Nikon, Nook and Beats by Dr. Dre.

“I think we have the brands that our customers want,” Mac Naughton said.

A variety of items from Goodyear tires to a Singer Sewing Machine go on sale at 5 a.m. on Black Friday.

Last year, Target, Best Buy , Macy’s and Kohl’s were closed on Thanksgiving and kicked off Black Friday sales at the stroke of midnight, their earliest starts ever. Best Buy Co Inc , Macy’s and Kohl’s all plan to open at midnight again, while Target has not given its plans yet.

Sears Holdings Corp’s Sears and Kmart stores will be open on Thanksgiving Day. Last year, Sears kept its discount chain Kmart open on Thanksgiving but the Sears chain was closed.

This year, Sears stores will open at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day and stay open overnight until 10 p.m. on Black Friday. Kmart has been open on Thanksgiving for the last 21 years.

In 2011, Walmart began with deals on toys, home items and clothing at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving, followed by electronics deals at midnight and other offers at 8 a.m. on Friday, November 25.

Most Walmart stores will be open on Thanksgiving, unless they are required to close by local or state law.

Walmart has faced protests in various U.S. cities lately and some workers have planned to walk off the job on Black Friday. Such actions are being sponsored by groups including a contingent of workers called OUR Walmart that receives union support.

(Reporting by Jessica Wohl in Chicago; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Business News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Officials: New mass graves found in Ivory Coast

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Up to 10 new mass graves have been discovered near the site of a July attack on a camp for displaced people, officials said Tuesday, amid allegations that initial casualty totals were downplayed to mask killings carried out by the national army.

Rights groups claim summary executions were carried out by the Republican Forces of Ivory Coast, known by its French acronym of FRCI. Last month, officials found six bodies in a well close to the former campsite in the western town of Duekoue.

Government, army and U.N. officials toured 10 more graves in the same area on Saturday, said Paul Mondouho, vice-mayor of Duekoue. He said the graves had first been identified by civilians, and that officials did not know the number of bodies they contained because they had not yet been properly exhumed.

“People were suspecting the presence of bodies in these graves because of the smell coming out of them and because of the shoes we saw nearby,” Mondouho said.

Prosecutor Noel Dje Enrike Yahau, who is based in the commercial capital of Abidjan, confirmed that multiple new graves had been discovered but could not provide details. U.N. officials and the local prosecutor in charge of investigating the suspected killings could not be reached Tuesday.

U.N. spokeswoman Sylvie van den Wildenberg confirmed that U.N. forces helped Ivorian authorities secure a perimeter around 10 wells “similar to the one in which six bodies were found,” and that “some of those wells are suspected mass graves.”

She stressed that Ivorian authorities were leading the investigation but that the U.N. was able to provide assistance.

Army spokesmen could not be reached Tuesday. The Justice Ministry has previously vowed to investigate the discovery of the initial grave.

On the morning of July 20, a mob descended on the U.N.-guarded Nahibly camp, which housed 4,500 people displaced by violence in Ivory Coast, burning most of the camp to the ground. Officials said at the time that six people were killed.

The attack was prompted by the shooting deaths of four men and one woman on the night of July 19, according to local officials and residents. In response a mob of some 300 people overran the camp on the morning of July 20 after the perpetrators of the shootings reportedly fled there.

The victims in the July 19 attack lived in a district dominated by the Malinke ethnic group, which largely supported President Alassane Ouattara in the disputed November 2010 election. The camp primarily housed members of the Guere ethnic group, which largely supported former President Laurent Gbagbo.

Gbagbo’s refusal to cede office despite losing the election to Ouattara sparked months of violence that claimed at least 3,000 lives.

Albert Koenders, the top U.N. envoy to Ivory Coast, said one week after the attack that U.N. security forces had been inside and outside the camp at the time but that no Ivorian security forces were present. He said the U.N. forces decided not to fire at a large group of people that were attacking the camp in order to avoid “a massacre.”

Several witnesses have said soldiers and traditional hunters, known as dozos, participated in the attack on the camp. Both military and dozo leaders have denied the claims, saying they had tried to protect the camp.

In a statement released Friday, the International Federation for Human Rights, known by its French acronym of FIDH, said it had information — including the preliminary results of autopsies — confirming that the six bodies found in October were men who had been summarily executed by the army.

“The disappearance of dozens of displaced persons after the attack, as well as confirmation of cases of summary and extra-judicial executions, suggest a much higher victim rate than the official figures report,” said the organization, which counts Ivorian civil society groups among its members.

Duekoue was one of the hardest-hit towns during the post-election violence. The U.N. has established that at least 505 people were killed in and around the town, including during a notorious March 2011 massacre that claimed hundreds of lives and was allegedly carried out by fighters loyal to Ouattara.

Duekoue residents belonging to ethnic groups that supported Gbagbo have long complained about abuses carried out by the FRCI, with some pointing to the direct involvement of the local commander, Kone Daouda. FIDH said in its statement that Daouda had been transferred following the discovery of the grave in October, and called for him to be interrogated over the matter.

The group also said two FRCI members were being “actively sought” after failing to return to their barracks on Oct. 16, noting that they are believed to have fled to neighboring Burkina Faso.

Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

AT&T’s Nokia Windows phone prices to undercut rivals

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – AT&T set a $ 50 starting price for Nokia‘s latest Windows smartphones, on which the struggling Finnish phone maker is pinning its hopes for a turnaround.

The No. 2 U.S. mobile provider said on Tuesday that it will sell the Nokia Lumia 820 for $ 49.99 and the flagship Lumia 920 phone for $ 99.99 compared with its $ 199.99 pricing for the HTC Corp Windows Phone 8X device.

Nokia, which has lost out hugely to Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co in recent years, is hinging its entire future on Microsoft‘s mobile software. HTC mostly sells phones based on Google Inc’s Android software but is hoping to diversify with Windows Phone 8.

The three devices are key for Microsoft which is banking on its Windows Phone 8 software to challenge Apple’s iPhone and Android phones from vendors like Samsung.

The low Nokia price shows that volumes are more important to the company than profits as it is hoping to re-build a U.S. customer base, Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart said.

And with such aggressive pricing, the only reason these phones could fail to sell well is if consumers decide they are not interested in the Microsoft software, Greengart said.

“It’s almost a referendum on Microsoft’s operating system,” said the analyst.

AT&T is also offering a free wireless charging plate with the purchase of the Lumia 920, which is worth about $ 80 according to an estimate from Greengart, who used previous wireless chargers as a benchmark.

“This is a valuable accessory that AT&T and Nokia are throwing in the box for free,” Greengart said. “I would think this will make it more difficult for HTC because they have a product with a smaller display and less unique features.”

The prices are for customers who sign a two-year wireless contract with AT&T. The phones, which are available beginning November 9, can be pre-ordered starting Wednesday.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..