Nokia has quietly launched the Lumia 525, the successor to — or rather a variant of — its best-selling Windows Phone the Lumia 520. While it's destined for a few markets, both the US and Europe will miss out.

The Lumia 525 today made an an unannounced appearance on Nokia's product pages, revealing a phone which has largely the same features as the Lumia 520, although Nokia has upped the RAM from 512MB to 1GB, supporting more apps at once or as Nokia highlights on a YouTube promo, providing extra grunt for memory-intensive gaming apps.

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Like the Lumia 520, announced at last year's Mobile World Congress , the 525 comes with 8GB storage, microSD slot, dual-core 1GHz processor, 1430 mAh capacity battery and a WVGA (800x480) display, five-megapixel camera. It's also retained the same basic shape with swappable covers in orange, yellow and white.

Nokia hasn't given a release date for the 525 and currently only lists the device as being available in Africa, the Middle East, China, India and Vietnam. That's similar to the Lumia 520, which Nokia initially released in Hong Kong and later brought to the US and Europe.

But unlike the popular 520, the Lumia 525 won't actually be making it to the UK, according to a Nokia UK spokesman, who told ZDNet it was a "variant" of the 520.

And since it's a variant, designed to cater for different target consumers, rather than a new model Nokia will not be stocking it in the UK where Nokia says the 520 remains popular. Nokia declined to answer questions about pricing.

Despite numerous high-end devices from Nokia, such as the Lumia 925, the 41-megapixel sensor 1020 and glossy six-inch phablet 1520, it's still the Lumia 520 and 625 that have been considered the driving force behind Windows Phone's market share gains over the past year, particularly in Europe where it's attracted first-time smartphone buyers.

Given that it is a variant of the 520, it wouldn't be surprising for the Lumia 525 to go for less than $200. The Lumia 520 launched in the US for $185 off contract and in the UK currently its available for around £120 from some retailers.

Details of the Lumia 525 first emerged after it gained certification for release in China earlier this month.

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