According to iSuppli, the world's largest mobile handset brand Nokia is stepping out of the third-party manufacturing arena, and will thereby spend $5 billion on the manufacturing of handsets.

Citing weak global demand for mobile devices as the reason for stopping the use of outside contract manufacturers for the assembly of its phones, Nokia said it will pull back outsourced production to Electronics Manufacturing Service (EMS) providers and Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs).

Nokia, the world's largest cellphone maker, is presently in talks with leading music content providers and music companies for rolling out its virtual music stores in India.

Under the facility, consumers would be able to access and download music on their mobile phones and PCs.

Sources reported that Finnish mobile handset maker is currently joining hands with around 150 music companies including Universal Music, Warner Bros, Sony BMG and other national music leaders.

The company is likely to launch the service initially in India with a free one-year subscription on purchase of select Nokia handsets.

Idea Cellular, one of the leading CDMA cum GSM Services provider, today rolled out its Blackberry service in collaboration with Research In Motion (RIM).

The company revealed that it will now offer a wide range of BlackBerry smartphones and services for enterprise and individual customers on its network, nationally.

The BlackBerry solution provides customers with easy wireless access to e-mail, phone, calendar, Web and multimedia applications, as well as access to thousands of other mobile business and lifestyle applications.

State-owned telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) has informed that it has commercially launched its third generation (3G) mobile services simultaneously in 11 cities, across the country.

The biggest telecom company in the country has launched 3G Mobile Services in 11 cities including Agra, Ambala, Jalandhar, Jaipur, Dehradoon, Shimla, Lucknow, Ranchi, Durgapur, Haldia, Patna & a soft launch in Jammu.

Hyderabad-based Tanla Solutions on Friday revealed its plan to form a 50:50 joint venture with Spanish mobile value-added services provider Zed Worldwide to develop and sell mobile content.

The company quoted in a statement that the proposed JV will also provide mobile advertising and related services to telecom operators in India.

The latest move entails an initial investment worth Rs 63 crore in the paid up capital, out of which both partners would contribute Rs 31.5 crore each.

On Friday, an announcement was made by Singapore Telecommunications under which it confirmed that it will commence selling the HTC Dream or Google mobile phone in Singapore from 21st February. This will make Singapore the second market in Asia to witness their launch.

Since the HTC phone comes with preloaded software such as Google Web Search, Gmail and Google Calendar, it is more commonly known as Google phone. Via this new phone, SingTel will also provide subscribers with video-on-demand content.