Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK)’s alliance with China Mobile is a Smart Move

Nokia Corporation (ADR)(NYSE:NOK)’s alliance with China Mobile for selling its new Lumia 920 in the country is being hailed as a smart move by the Finnish handset maker.

Forbes called it a coup and noted that "China Mobile’s huge subscriber base (700 million) gives Nokia almost twice as big an addressable market for its comeback Windows Phone bid in the world’s biggest smartphone market."

The strategic partnership has also rattled Apple loyalists, and was one of the triggers behind the slide in the company's shares on Wednesday.

China Mobile is the country's biggest network services provider.

Nokia has put to rest the rumours of its imminent entry into China via a tie-up and confirmed on Wednesday that it would be bringing the TD-SCDMA variant of its flagship Lumia 920 smartphone to China Mobile before the end of the year.

Incidentally Apple's iPhone 5 will be also launched this month in the country but in a tie-up with China Telecom and China Unicom.

While specific sales figures are not available there are reports of Nokia's Lumia smartphones being sold out in countries such as Germany and Australia.

A report by Yahoo China also said that the European cell phone maker received more than 2.5 million orders for the Lumia 920 in less than a month since launch, Forbes said.

"To add perspective, this is just a tad shy of 2.9 million sales that Nokia recorded for the entire Lumia portfolio during the previous quarter," Forbes added.

Of course Nokia still has to contend against Apple and Google's Android operating system, both of which have a significant presence in the country. But Nokia has started its come-back campaign well.

Investors Cheered the company’s recent move and the stock soared about 14% to hit multi-month high of $3.88 in Wednesday’s session.