NEW DELHI: “Optimistic but cautious.” This is how smartphone market analysts reacted after Nokia announced its first devices powered by Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. At its global event in London, Nokia announced two Windows phones – Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 – and three Asha phones..

With Asha phones, which combine a touch screen with a keyboard, Nokia hopes to serve consumers looking for cheap feature phones in the emerging markets like India. “No doubt Nokia is betting big on India with the Asha series of phones… Specifications like 1GHz processor, features like touch-and-type, and integrated social networking and email would be very compelling, as the price points are expected to be aggressive,” said Deepak Kumar, research director (telecom) at IDC.

Naveen Mishra, lead analyst (telecom) at Cyber Media Research, agreed. “Nokia lost market share in the last few years because it was slow to deliver features that consumers wanted. For example, a dual-SIM phone. But with Asha phones, I feel they are on right track,” he said.

“Windows phones also look pretty good but as it happens with smartphones a lot depends on ecosystem. We will have to wait and see how consumers react to Windows phones.”

On Nokia’s Windows phones Kumar said it’s a work in progress. “I feel we will see the full potential of partnership between Microsoft and Nokia in a few quarters. Only then it will get clear if it can take on Android and iPhone or not. Lumia phones are just the beginning,” he added.

Nokia and Microsoft, which are struggling to crack the lucrative smartphone market, had announced their partnership in February this year. This means that the Finnish firm had managed to put Windows devices in just eight months, a welcome change for a company that has come under fire in the recent years for being slow to the market. “From the Nokia Lumia 800 to the Nokia Asha 201, we are bringing compelling new products to the market faster than ever before,” Elop said in London.

Before joining hands with the Redmond giant, Nokia was betting on MeeGo operating software. Microsoft had launched Windows Phone 7 platform last year but failed to make much headway. Recently, the company added a number of missing features to the OS through an update called Mango.

According to the latest IDC report on the state of Indian smartphone market, Nokia had a market share of 25% in Q2 of 2011 for the overall phone industry. For smartphone market, its share was 45.8%. “It is important to note that the smartphone segment in India constituted just 5.6% of the total mobile phones market until the Jan-March 2011 quarter, though the segment is forecasted to see a high CAGR of over 68% during 2010-2015. This means there is still time for Nokia (and Microsoft) to set their smartphone strategy right,” said Kumar.