Nokia won’t launch a tablet at MWC, analysts say

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We’ve heard more than a few murmurings about a Nokia tablet in recent months, but one analyst company reckons it’ll be a while before we actually see the device. That’s because the Finnish phone firm won’t launch a slate PC at Mobile World Congress in a week’s time, according to Strategy Analytics.

It’s been conducting “extensive channel checks” and found that Nokia doesn’t have a tablet in the works. At least, not at a stage ready for production.

“We believe Nokia’s strategy will be ‘smart phones first’ for MWC this year,” Strategy Analytics says on its website. “And rightly so. Nokia will want to expand its Lumia smart phone range and solidify its growing leadership of the global WP8 market.”

This week, the rumours started flying again when a distinctly tablet-shaped device was spotted at the launch of the Lumia 620 in Pakistan. Nokia was quick to deny it though, with a spokesperson telling My Nokia Blog (well, not my Nokia blog), “That’s not a leak. That is a picture that simply shows WP UI alongside Win8 Tablet UI alongside Xbox UI. They are not Nokia specific products.”

However, the spokesperson wouldn’t deny that Nokia was making a tablet. And going on past evidence, I reckon it is. CEO Stephen Elop recently told reporters in Sydney that Nokia was eyeing up the tablet market. It’s something “we are looking at very closely,” he said.

And he previously told Bloomberg that he was excited about the opportunity Windows 8 offered for tablets. “There’s a new tablet opportunity coming,” he said. “We see the opportunity. Unquestionably, that will change the dynamics [of the tablet market].”

Last March, Nokia’s design supremo Marko Ahtisaari told a Finnish magazine that working on a tablet took up a third of his time.

All of which points to Nokia launching a tablet at some point. It might not be at Mobile World Congress, but I’d wager the Fins have something tablet-sized up their sleeve.

What do you reckon? And what would you like to see from a Nokia tablet? Let me know in the comments, or on Facebook.