Nokia has had another false start in the U.S., canceling the stateside launch of the X7 smartphone.

AT&T was slated to be the exclusive carrier for the touchscreen X7, which would have been Nokia's first smartphone with a U.S. carrier. Thus far, the Finnish phone maker has promised that it would produce a phone for the U.S. market, but it has consistently failed to deliver on those promises. The X7 was set to launch prior to next month's Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, the Wall Street Journal said.

But the X7 isn't totally dead. Nokia still plans to launch it in other markets. The Journal said that it's been killed in the U.S. because of a lack of marketing and subsidy support from AT&T.

Nokia would not comment on the status of the phone.

"We do not comment on market rumor and speculation, or ongoing discussions with our operator partners about what plans we may have together in this market," said a Nokia spokesperson. "That said, it is well publicized that we are working hard to regain leadership in the U.S. market and we are in active discussions with our operator partners on that strategy."

Nokia isn't completely absent from the U.S. market. The N8 smartphone is available, but without carrier support it's pricey and offers little incentive for consumers to buy it. Symbian, Nokia's operating system, is the largest mobile platform in the world, but U.S. carriers generally regard it as unreliable and outdated.

That race is a close one, too. BlackBerry is still the dominant platform, with about a third (33.5 percent) of the smartphone market, but the real competition is between Apple and Google. Android recently leapfrogged iOS to become the number two mobile platform with 26 percent of the pie. Apple isn't far behind with 25 percent.

Nokia has plans for a new operating system, MeeGo, but neither a launch date nor many details have been divulged. However, there will likely be news of MeeGo coming out of MWC in February.