Nokia's new Chief Executive Stephen Elop managed to instill some confidence in the company's investors by hinting that the world's largest handset maker might be preparing for a radical break with its past.

On a conference call following the Finnish mobile phone giant's fourth-quarter report, Mr. Elop talked about Nokia's need to change rapidly in a fast-changing market place, and to consider "multiple ecosystem patterns". Investors interpreted the comments as a sign that Nokia might be preparing to adopt a new smartphone platform, and traded up the company's shares following a sharp dip earlier Thursday in the wake of its bleak first-quarter outlook.

Mr. Elop was clearly hinting that Nokia is either considering the adoption of a new operating system or that it has already made that decision, said analyst Geoff Blaber at research firm CCS Insight, adding that the most likely option in that case would be Google Inc's Android.

Google's open smartphone platform, which has been rapidly adopted by smartphone vendors across the globe including Taiwan's HTC Corp. and U.S.-based Motorola, surged to a 26% share of the global smartphone platform market in the third quarter of 2010 from 3.5% a year earlier according to the latest figures from research firm Gartner.

In contrast, Nokia's main smartphone platform Symbian fell to a 37% market share in that quarter from 45% the year before according to Gartner, as handset vendors Sony Ericsson and Samsung put their development plans for the operating system on hold to focus on Android instead.