Niklas Savander steps up to the keynote slot at Nokia World.
With CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo's departure from Nokia announced last week, he was also bumped from the lead keynote slot at today's Nokia World conference in London.
His replacement was Niklas Savander, Nokia's EVP of Markets, who took a bullish line from the start.
"Yes, Nokia is going through a tough challenging transition, and we have a lot more work to do. But we have laid the foundations for success. We're not going to apologise for not being Apple or Google or Samsung or anybody else. We are Nokia! We are unique."
Savander took several direct shots at Apple during his speech, too.
"Even at the high-end, offering people just one model will lead to compromises, whether it's compromises with the camera, the browser, the keyboard, or the phone itself".
He also took aim at the figures being published by Nokia's smartphone rivals.
"In the last quarter, people bought far more Nokia smartphones than Apple and Android combined," said Savander.
"On average, people buy 260,000 Nokia smartphones every day. That's 260,000 new smartphones - we didn't add software updates, or sales of music players and computers to that number."
Savander also pointed out that almost all of those 260,000 devices are Symbian, which he says is holding its own as a smartphone OS.
Nokia is aiming to ship more than 50 million smartphones using the new version of the Symbian OS, starting with the N8.
Savander said more than 100 operators have already signed up to sell the N8 around the world, including Vodafone, whose CEO is due to speak later this morning at Nokia World.
He took another shot at Apple, saying Nokia's devices "perform day-in, day-out, no matter how you hold them".
Savander took time during his speech to talk about Nokia's operations in mapping, navigation and location-based services.
"Contrary to popular perception, Nokia - NOT Google - is the leader in mobile navigation," he said. "Ovi Maps and Navigation services lead the market in terms of functionality, quality and reach."
He claimed that Ovi Maps is "far, far less data-hungry than the Google service", but made an error when claiming that Ovi Maps' inclusion of pedestrian navigation is a feature lacking from Google Maps - in fact, it was introduced earlier this month.
However, Savander predicted that by 2013, 800 million people around the world will be using GPS-enabled devices.
"Soon, everything on the internet will have a location part of it," he said. "It is a space that we intend to own."
Savander also praised Nokia's outgoing CEO during his speech.
"Nokia owes a great deal to Olli-Pekka for his many contributions over an incredible 30-year career," said Savander.
New CEO Stephen Elop did not make an appearance during the keynote, although Savander made apologies on his behalf.
"Today is about three words," he concluded. "Nokia is back."
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