December 14, 2007
Nokia's North American Penetration
I saw something recently where a question was asked whether Nokia can/will make in-roads into North America. Are you kidding me? They have 40% Global marketshare, set the trends (for most part) and now own Navteq as well... of course Nokia will make more penetration in North America! The future of mobile lies in presence, mobile ads, on demand music, videos, games etc... who else could dominate that space at this time? North Americans for the most part are content with text messaging, 1 megapixel digital cameras (shoot, my daughter even has a 3MP phone camera!) and push email. Try a phone with 4 or 8GB expandable memory, an amazing video and digital camera experience, hundreds of thousands of available apps, Internet radio and much more ... the biggest obstacle is the sales channel. The Carrier shops sell crappy devices, sales crews are totally clueless, and the selection of devices simply isn't there. Go online and buy an unlocked device, that's what consumers need to be doing... beware the contract
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Glenn - are you working for Nokia now?! Just kidding :-) I know the extensive coverage is because of your Symbian heritage.
The reason Nokia doesn't do well in the US is because they hate that the US carriers turn devices into commodity subsidy, so they stay out of the market. It's one of the reasons they are moving up the stack to offer apps. If their devices are worth nothing and they have minimal margin on them, well, then they need to recoup elsewhere. This is not the way things are in Europe (their stronghold) where just as many devices are sold unlocked as locked ones via Carrier distribution channels.
The above said, the end of the device subsidy model in the US is near though, and unlocked phones will be the norm. The implications are such that as a consumer you'll give up carrier customer support as a sacrifice for the freedom offered with unlocked liberty.
Post a Comment