Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has begun shipping its flagship N97 mobile phone in more than 75 countries, the company said today. The phone, which sports a touch screen and Qwerty keyboard, is meant to compete with Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s Blackberry devices, sales of which ate into Nokia’s share of the smartphone market last year. In the UK, the N97 will be sold through 3, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD), Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U, all of which have not yet disclosed tariff costs. Nokia stores will sell an unlocked version for £499.

Nokia’s VP for N series handsets told Bloomberg that the N97 “should not be a niche product,” and that its goal was to have similar sales to the N95, which has sold more than 10 million units as of the end of March. According to Gartner, Nokia’s share of the smartphone market fell to 41.2 percent at the end Q1 from 49.4 percent at the end of 2007, while RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) doubled its share to 19.9 percent. Apple’s share has shot to 10.8 percent of all smartphones, from none two years ago. Read more on sister site mocoNews.net.