Oct. 29, 2012 at 1:02 PM ET
Verizon Wireless, the largest cellphone carrier in the U.S., will sell a Nokia phone for the first time in years, according to the Finnish phonemaker, lending support to the embattled company's turnaround effort.
The press release says Verizon will sell the Lumia 822, an exclusive model that's part of Nokia's lineup of smartphones based on Microsoft's Windows software. Verizon told NBC News that pricing is $99.99 with a 2-year contract. Launch date has not been announced. Verizon rivals AT&T and T-Mobile USA started selling Lumia phones earlier this year.
Even though it was, until recently, the world's largest maker of phones, Nokia has been largely absent from the U.S. market for many years. Its early smartphones never caught on in the country, and it was virtually shut out once the iPhone launched in 2007.
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