10Meters News Service

January 21, 2002 – A year ago, Nokia was winning kudos for creating trendy cell phones that were prized by youthful users for their fashionable form as well as utilitarian function.

That was then; now, it seems, Nokia believes the time is right for upwardly mobile extravagance.

Courtesy Vertu

On Tuesday, Nokia officially opened the doors of its luxury-phone subsidiary, Vertu Ltd., and introduced its first high-style product line: a cell-phone for the person who has everything, primarily a lot of money.

An independent company funded by the mobile-phone giant, Vertu aims to take the mobile phone to heights comparable to the world's finest watches – as a precision instrument encrusted with the finest jewels.

Costing upwards of 20,000 euros (US $21,000), the Vertu line will be sold at company-run Vertu Galleries and by personal appointment at "Vertu Private Client Suites" to be opened in Europe, the United States and Asia Pacific.

The phones will be available in mid-2002 and use GSM technology.

Peter Ashall, president of Vertu, said the company "not only reinvents an object, it reinvents an experience."

The experience provided by Vertu's "signature collection" includes phone-casings in either platinum, 18-carat white gold, 18-carat yellow gold or stainless steel.

The phones, which are assembled by hand, boast more than 400 mechanical parts, including 18 jeweled bearings – among them rubies "to ensure the key press is smooth and precise." The scratch-resistant sapphires used on the face-pad, said Vertu, are "second only to diamonds in hardness."

Vertu said that 20 new patents were filed during the development of the phones, which are the brainchild of Frank Nuovo, head of design for Nokia since 1995 and now Vertu's creative director and designer.

"History has provided inspired examples of dedication to precision craft and design. Our ambition applies this approach to proven advanced mobile technology," Nuovo said.

The company employs 200 and is headquartered in the United Kingdom with offices in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Singapore and Hong Kong.