Nokia sales chief warns Samsung to ‘take note’ of next generation Lumia

Now that Nokia has revealed when its big Windows Phone 8 launch event will be, it’s time for the company to start building up the hype and it’s doing it by taking aim at its biggest competitor: Samsung. Chris Weber, formerly Nokia’s US president and currently a part of its leadership team as executive VP of sales and marketing, has taken to Twitter to boldly call Samsung out:

The unwritten rule among device makers is not to directly address one another — Google’s Vic Gundotra did it with a fowl-based metaphor, Samsung itself does it with tongue-in-cheek ads poking fun, but it’s rare to see those sentiments expressed directly— so the feistiness of Weber’s words should not be underestimated. It conveys a confidence that’s either backed up by what he’s seen behind closed doors or inflated by Nokia’s desperation to deliver a truly market-leading device.

In either case, Nokia isn’t happy to have swapped positions with Samsung, which has taken over its long-held role as leader in global smartphone shipments. Whereas Nokia once dominated the market, it now commands only a 6.6 percent share of it, while Samsung is almost five times as big at 32.6 percent. It’ll take a lot to reverse that trend, but Nokia seems confident its next generation of Lumia devices won’t disappoint.