**Editor's note: Please click here for our list of August's hottest selling smartphones to see how Nokia devices stacked up against the competition.**
As it fights to make its Microsoft Windows-based mobile phones relevant to U.S. consumers, Nokia Corp. could use the help of the nation's biggest wireless carrier: Verizon Wireless.
It looks like Nokia will receive the support.
Brenda Raney, a Verizon Wireless spokeswoman, told The Wall Street Journal that the company will work with Nokia, although she provided no specifics one day after Nokia unveiled two phones based on the Microsoft Windows 8 operating system: the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820.
In the U.S., Nokia currently sells first-generation Lumia phones through AT&T and T-Mobile USA.
Partnering with Verizon Wireless would give Nokia – and potentially the new Lumia phones – exposure to the carrier's vast base of 88.8 million retail postpaid customers. Half of those customers already own smartphones, including Apple's iPhone and devices that run on the Android operating system.
Technology and Wall Street analysts were impressed by the new Lumia features unveiled Wednesday. Still, shares of Nokia fell 16 percent. Analysts appeared to be partly concerned over the absence of details on pricing and availability of the new phones.
In a daily letter to investors Wednesday, Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley said he didn't anticipate the new Lumia phones would hit the market until later in the fourth quarter after Apple launches its next iPhone and a number of LTE-powered Android phones are released. That will limit holiday sales, he said.
"While we are impressed with many of the new [Lumia] features, we believe the Microsoft ecosystem still faces an uphill battle to win customers and create a viable long-term third mobile ecosystem after Android and Apple's iOS," Walkley wrote.
In the three-month average period ending in July, Microsoft's smartphone platform only held 3.6 percent market share in the U.S., according to comScore data released Tuesday.
