Nokia is hoping to cash in on the low-end smartphone market by making its low-end Windows Phone the Lumia 525 available in markets like China and Russia. The hope is that the Nokia brand and the Windows mobile operating system will become more popular if the phones are made more accessible more users at a low cost.

The smartphone will go on sale before the end of the year in Chine, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Singapore and Russia. In China, one of the most coveted smartphone markets, the handset is priced at 1099 yuan ($180) before taxes and subsidies, according to PCWorld. Following the Nokia Lumia 525's release in these countries, it will become available in Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine, Khazakstan and parts of Africa during the first quarter of next year a company spokesperson said.

The device is a variant of the Lumia 520. Although it isn't an outright successor to the Lumia 520. It offers the same 4-inch screen with a resolution of 800 by 480 megapixels, a 5-pixel camera and dual-core 1GHz processor. There is also 8GB of integrated memory and a microSD card slot. Where it differs from the Lumia 520 is the 1GB of RAM it has instead of the 512MB.

During the third quarter, Lumia sales reportedly increased by 19 percent quarter-on-quarter to 8.8 million units. This reflects strong demand particularly for the Lumia 520 the company said.

As PCWorld points out, the market for low-end smartphones is expanding due in no small part to Google's efforts to corner the market with Android devices. Earlier this week the Moto G from the Google-owned Motorola Mobility hit the U.S. offering users a device that costs as much as the Lumia 525 but comes with slightly improved specs like a 1.2GHz quad-core processor and a 4.5-inch 720p display screen. While the Lumia family has kept the Windows Phone concept alive, analysts are suggesting the company does not rest on its laurels for too long.