subject: Where will Nokia Stand in the next 2 years in India? [print this page] This question has been one of the most sort after in the telecom industry and experts have different opinions on the same, some feel Indian ventures like Micromax who is already at No.3 in 2 years time will take over the number one position in the coming two years and many more like Karbonn, Lemon, Lava mobiles, MVL will take over the biggies like Samsung, Sony ericssion, LG and Motorola who will lose grounds in the second largest and fastest growing Indian Market. Some other experts opine Nokia and others will exit from the market to other growing markets and won't get into cut throat competition and may also divert to some other industry, while others feel Nokia will give a tough competition and will be in the market by retaining leadership position in the next two years.
If Nokia's response in the last 1 year is anything to go by, Nokia is here to stay and is going to retain the leadership position too in the coming years. Nokia's strategies has been on target and have achieved a lot in the last 1 year or so,The first strategy included getting into the top notch market of the mobile handset by setting up enterprise server and also providing the beta service for free through which Nokia gave a head on competition to Blackberry which had been charging for the same service from a long time and blackberry had to provide other features like Blackberry messenger linked through enterprise server for free messaging worldwide to compete, but later blackberry fell into the hands of governments in UAE, India and other countries for not sharing contents with intelligence agencies because of the high level of encryption which also is an USP for blackberry.
The second strategy included getting features like Ovi Mail, Ovi Music and Ovi Apps services to generate revenue and which would eventually support Nokia's Indian Business, Ovi Mail was not only provided on high end phones but also on the B segment phones wherein it was getting tough competition from Indian companies like Micromax, maxx and Karbonn mobiles which gave an USP to Nokia handsets, also taking into consideration that by 2013-14 the number of email users on mobile will reach 130-140 million from the current 7-8 million on the other hand Micromax,Karbonn provided third party software's like Opera Mini Browser, Nimbuzz and ebuddy messenger to cope with Nokia's strategy. In an intention to provide value to customers purchase freebies like free Ovi Music and Ovi Apps were also provided.Nokia later on countered with installment schemes on its handsets to make it more affordable to the Indian customer.
The Third strategy included taking low cost b-segment handsets vendors like Micromax,Maxx and Karbonn head on by getting the C series of handsets.C series handsets with the entry level handset C1 with Dual Sim technology which also marked Nokia's entry into dual sim technology. With its in house Research and Development and experts it got many of the best suited features like flash sim which was not available with other Chinese mobile vendors in India and with C2 and C3 yet to be released which are basic B segment handsets with added features and with value for money proposition. C3 when launched will be Nokia's low end QWERTY keypad handset on S40 platform with many features like Live facebook, and twitter updates and a new browser by Nokia specially designed for its S40 platform and C5 and C7 marking the lower end business phones with enterprise mail system and business ready features.
All in all Nokia is not only engaged in working on the lower end of the market with value for money B-segment phones which constitutes 60% of the market but also on higher end phones with Enterprise server service for business phones and also getting into application and music store services to tackle the competition. At the end of the day it's not only Nokia who is taking guards to defend its position in the Indian market but companies like Samsung who now has the largest market share in the touch screen handset business and is getting a range of dual sim handsets to counter and companies like HTC who has got into lower end touch screen smart phones.
With Nokia going in an all out war against its competitors the Finnish major is now looking for a much larger share in the high end business phone market and with problems of blackberry with the government it is not going to give away its leadership position easily to Indian competitors in the coming years.
Where will Nokia Stand in the next 2 years in India?
