Nokia N9 Not Launching In UK, France Or Germany

Well it's confirming what we already knew really, but Nokia have released a list of countries that will see the N9 go on sale. What's more interesting here though are the countries that aren't getting the N9 (officially). The list of countries that will receive the N9 are as follows:

Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Malaysia, New Zealand, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia,Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE and Vietnam.

Notable by their absence in that list are some of the major European markets such as the United Kingdom, France and Germany. However, Nokia's first Windows Phone handset is expected to launch across Western Europe first, presumably in those markets left out of the N9 launch. That still doesn't answer the question of why Nokia is seemingly ignoring some of Europe's biggest markets. Perhaps they're afraid of the competition?