Nokia's new China head asks for Windows Phone apps

Nokia's newly appointed general manager in China, Erik Bertman, made his debut in the country by calling for young talents to develop applications for the Windows Phone platform.

Nokia, together with China's biggest telecom operator - China Mobile Ltd - launched the Windows Phone 8 Application Innovation Campaign on Friday. The initiative targets all the Windows Phone app developers in China and hopes to get more than 1,000 ideas within four months.

Bertman is the fifth China head for Nokia in the past four years, indicating some turbulence in the company's high-level management in the world's biggest mobile market.

Bertman's predecessor, Gustavo Eichelmann, resigned from his post in May and returned to the United Kingdom citing “personal reasons”.

Bertman has been appointed general manager of Nokia China effective June 1. He joins the China team from Russia, where he has been based since 2009, according to the company. Officials from Nokia said the Sweden-born Bertman has a strong track record of delivering results and is capable of making the right market decisions.

“China plays a key role to Nokia,” Bertman said at a Beijing news conference.

Nokia has operated in China for 28 years and has about 250 million Nokia device users there, he pointed out.

The Innovation Campaign aims to allow young developers to achieve their dreams and drive innovation on the Windows Phone platform, Bertman said. Nokia is dedicated to mobile products running on the Windows Phone system and hopes to build it into the world's third-largest mobile ecosystem. The other two mainstream mobile platforms are Google Inc's Android system and Apple Inc's iOS.

Bertman said the Windows Phone ecosystem now has a total of 160,000 apps, including 70,000 apps just for Chinese consumers.