Symbian Belle and its NFC prowess to hit India by end of year

Nokia says Symbian Belle and its NFC prowess to hit India by end of year

Nokia is planning on deploying Symbian Belle and its NFC capabilities to Indian handsets before the end of the year. Many of Nokia’s phones in India that are not capable of NFC are many of those are currently running on Symbian Anna, but news that has broken within the last few days reveals that Nokia plans to get Symbian Belle installed on NFC capable smartphones by the end of 2011. This news about Symbian Belle came directly from the Vice President and Managing Director of the company in India, D Shivakumar

Symbian Belle will bring Indian users features that include Near Field Communications which was demonstrated by Nokia India. This will only work with Nokia smartphones that have the NFC chip built in. The Just Tap application has been launched as part of digital promotion of the upcoming movie. NFC marketing is already being deployed in India and a current campaign features the new Bollywood movie, Ra.One. With the Just Tap application, users can redeem the exclusive Ra.One content by simply enabling NFC and tapping it at the special posters located in multiplexes and Nokia Priority Partner locations. We are not sure what a Nokia priority partner is, but what is evident is that NFC marketing that uses content aggregation is in full swing in India.

Nokia deploying more NFC phones in India before Symbian Belle arrives

Nokia has recently deployed three handsets running Symbian Belle in India. The Nokia 700, Nokia 701 and Nokia 600. These handsets were launched by D Shivakumar at Nokia India along with Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan.

Currently in India, only the Nokia C7 has NFC built in, but unlike many other versions of the Nokia C7 around the world the NFC will only be enabled in India’s C7 when Symbian Belle arrives. At a conference that announced the Symbian Belle update, D Shivakumar said that about 50 developers (Symbian Platform) have been working closely with the company to roll out NFC-based applications by the time Symbian Belle arrives for supporting devices in India. Symbian Belle handset successors with NFC built in (read Windows Phone 7 NFC phones) will stay to bring mobile NFC payments and mobile transactions. Until then, Indian consumers will have to make do with the low power and close range content sharing and coupons remittances across India.

If you are looking from where to download Symbian Belle to enable NFC in Indian Nokia smartphones, it looks like you will have to wait until December.