Nokia has lifted the lid on its follow-up to the ultra-popular Lumia 520 (review), which serves as the entry-level Windows Phone 8 powered Lumia smartphone.

Like its predecessor, the forthcoming Lumia 525 measures less than 10 mm thin and weighs in at a comfortable 124 g. It is powered by a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor clocked at 1 GHz per core and boasts double the RAM (1 GB) of the Lumia 520. This smartphone packs a 4'' (480 x 800) IPS LCD that features a still respectable pixel density of 235 ppi and Espoo’s super sensitive touch technology, meaning you can use the smartphone whilst wearing gloves.

Users still capture photos via a 5MP autofocus camera and have access to 8 GB worth of internal storage, which can be expanded by as much as 64 GB via its microSD card slot.

Also onboard is a Wi-Fi 802.11 n, Bluetooth 4.0, 3G HSDPA connectivity instead of LTE, plus a 1430 mAh battery that Nokia claims delivers a music playback time of 48 hours or standby time of two weeks.

Want one? Don’t hold your breath

The Lumia 520 is one of our (if not the) favourite budget smartphones as it offers some excellent midrange specs for its R1 900 pricetag. This made us really excited about the prospects about getting our hands on its successor, but unfortunately Nokia South Africa has no intention to offer the Lumia 525 locally.

According to the company, the Lumia 520 is a key device for it locally and it remains fully committed to driving the continued success of this smartphone along with its operator as well as its retail partners well into 2014.

In other smartphone related news, market research firm IDC recently revealed that worldwide smartphone shipments are forecasted to surpass 1 billion units in 2013, representing 39.3% year-on-year growth.