Trim Trend Eludes Nokia

Some see little impact. Unlike smaller phone makers whose "one design flop can be damaging, Nokia has so many phones one failed design isn't going to matter much," says Henrik Didner, a money manager with Didner & George of Uppsala, Sweden. He was in New York Thursday for the company's annual Capital Market Days briefing.

Still, when it comes to ultrathin phones, Nokia seems to be showing a reversion to its tone-deaf ways.

Nokia executives said the company is continually working to make better, sleeker phones, but downplayed the notion that phones have to be slim to win.

"Thinness isn't the only criteria," said Nokia operating chief Olli Pekka Kallasvuo in an interview Thursday. "Thin, small, the personal element, it's the totality" of the phone that matters. "You can't take just one element."

But some observers say that comment hits a familiar note -- that Nokia's way is the only way.

"It's typical Nokia," said one industry analyst. "They won't do it because they didn't think of it first."