Nokia Again Rules Out Android, Will Stick With Windows Phone 8 And Asha

Nokia’s head, Stephen Elop had a busy day today. Besides, announcing its financial results for the fourth quarter, he also let out the word that the Finnish company managed to move 4.4 million Lumia smartphones in the same period.

For all intents and purposes, the once king of mobile is back to winning ways — no matter how small they are for now. A start is a start.

Seeing how the Windows Phone platform is building up pace and finding market acceptance, the Nokia CEO, during the conference call, reiterated the fact that his company remains committed in driving innovation together with Microsoft.

Fancy words, but this is essentially, another way of saying that the company has no plans of trying something adventurous. Elop confirmed that Nokia has no plans of trying its luck with Android, and will focus on releasing new Windows Phone devices, as well as expanding the reach of its Asha lineup.

According to TechCrunch, Nokia’s CEO said:

“We are clearly innovating with Microsoft around Windows Phone, and are focused on taking that to lower and lower price points. You will see that over time compete with Android.

But at the same time we’ve said consistently — and we’re just beginning to see it in the Asha full-touch products — that we will continue to innovate around our Asha smartphone line in order to compete with the very lowest levels of Android.”

Meaning the company wants to pit its Asha devices against low cost Android phones, with a desire to increase the reach of the Asha platform by reducing the cost of ownership. He concluded:

“We are not in a situation where we are considering something other than Windows Phone combined with what we’re doing with Asha.”

Microsoft and Nokia joined hands with a desire to drive the Windows Phone platform up to the third position on the smartphone OS market. Of course, parallel to this quest was helping Nokia regain some of the lost ground and market share it squandered.

And the way things have shaped up, both goals are going pretty much on track.