For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 19, 2012 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include Nokia Corporation (NOK), Apple Inc. (AAPL), AT&T Inc. (T), Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) and Microsoft Corporation (MSFT).

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Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

Nokia Adds Big Carrier Partners

Nokia Corporation (NOK) has finally managed to get some big carrier partners to revive its smartphone business. These carriers are believed to be betting on Nokia, in order to reduce their dependence on Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iPhone and other Android-based phones.

Recently, AT&T Inc. (T) – the second largest carrier in the U.S. started selling Nokia’s latest Lumia offering, while the biggest U.S. carrier Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) has started taking pre orders for its customized Lumia 822 from November 13. Moreover, T-Mobile USA, one of the top 4 U.S. carriers, is also likely to offer Lumia 810, before the holiday season ends.

Nokia provides the carriers the opportunity to have their own customized Lumia, thereby differentiating their products from the competitors. This is a unique benefit, which will enable Nokia to win more carrier partners particularly in the lucrative U.S. market, where it has lagged over years. However, the lack of applications as compared to Apple and Android has been the major cause of concern for Nokia.

Tying up with these big carriers couldn’t have come at a better time for the Finnish telecom giant as Nokia will leverage from the marketing prowess of Microsoft Corporation (MSFT), which will target its huge user base to popularize its recently launched Windows/Windows Phone 8 Operating System.

Nokia is expected to benefit from the marketing push of the big operators, which are looking to add on a third ecosystem to increase the competition in the smartphone market. Higher smartphone subsidies to tap customers are eating up on the margins of these carriers. Thus, a third OS will not only reduce the carriers’ dependence on Android or iOS but will also provide customers with wider choice given Lumia’s variety.

Nokia reported dismal results for the third quarter of 2012, with the company shipping only 6.3 million smart devices, which include only 2.9 million Lumia series phones. We believe this big carrier partnership could act as a boon for Nokia to stamp Lumia’s mark as one of the biggest smartphone brands in the world. However, Nokia will require more such partnerships to create a niche for itself as Windows phone has little customer acceptance till date.