The Nokia N9 smartphone is displayed at a Nokia news conference in Espoo
The Nokia N9 smartphone is displayed at a Nokia news conference in Espoo REUTERS

A recent report from Finnish phone maker Nokia has confirmed that despite its positive critical reception, the MeeGo powered N9 smartphone will not be getting a UK release.

Nokia reportedly disclosed the news in a statement to mocoNews. The report comes despite the overwhelmingly positive reaction the smartphone has received from numerous British critics.

"Although we are delighted with the very positive reception that the Nokia N9 has received, here in the UK there are no plans to offer the N9 at present," read the section of Nokia's statement addressing the N9's popularity.

Analysts have already speculated that Nokia's reason for cutting the UK from the N9's shipping list could be the exact same reason the British public are interested in it. The device is one of only a handful of Nokia smartphones not to run on the company's critically panned Symbian operating system.

The N9 instead runs on the MeeGo OS -- a linux based operating system that previously has been used on tablet pcs and notebooks.

Even before the N9 was given a release date, Nokia had already inked a deal with Windows Phone, marking the N9 as a one-of-a-kind device from the outset. The company's decision not to release the N9 in the UK is widely seen as a direct consequence of this, with Nokia not wanting to confuse consumers by flooding the market with too many operating systems.

The same report also claimed that the N9 would not be available in the U.S. and that Nokia would be cutting low-end smartphone and Symbian powered device shipments in the very near future.