The Lumia lineup of the
Nokia Corporation (ADR)(NYSE:NOK) may prove to be a key to the company’s
resurgent smartphone hopes. However, the company cannot afford to lose focus on
its feature phone business. Nokia’s business has been waning at an alarmingly
high rate amid a slow and painful move to Windows Phone. Its feature phones
sales have held up comparatively well and continue to be lucrative in spite of
Android’s increasing popularity. It is a smart move on Nokia’s part that apart
from marketing the Lumia well in developed markets, it is also launching more
phone models based on Symbian operating system that are targeted at its
traditional customers in the emerging markets.
The mobile phone
manufacturer based in Finland has recently taken the curtains off the two new
additions to its evolving collection of Asha phones, the Asha 205 and 206, with
a variety of social networking features. The Asha 205 has a dedicated Facebook
button while the Asha 206 has access to Twitter and Facebook right from the
home screen. Nokia has also implemented a feature called Slam that is designed
to let users to share content almost immediately with friends using Bluetooth
technology. With the help of these features, Nokia is expecting to allure its
first-time users and compete better with inexpensive Android smartphones that
have been putting forth a downward pressure on costs in developing markets
since a long time now.
The most valuable
market for mobile business of Nokia has historically been the up-and-coming
markets where, even though its market share has been decreasing alarmingly, it
has managed to remain ahead of the remaining terms of total shipped units.
Nokia’s emerging markets division is responsible for 20% of the total value of
the company with cash accounting for an extra 25%.
Entry of cheap Android
touch smartphones has rushed margins, leading to Nokia’s decision of increasing
its feature set to look more like smartphones and justify its price points
better.
No comments:
Post a Comment