Nokia

NOKIA

It was 1865 when Fredrik Idestam built wood-pulp mill in southern Finland, after few years he built second mill next to the Nokianvirta River leading to the name recognised by the world today: NOKIA.Over 145 years company has evolved from a paper manufacturer to rubber boots and power cables to the world’s largest mobile handset maker in the world.

Indians have witnessed the wireless telecom sector being revolutionised by Nokia, since it entered India first in 1995.The market for Nokia in India was perfect-there were no local vendors, no domestic manufacturing and no black market dvices.Nokia walked in with in various ranges of mobiles along with reliable services and quality standards. For a decade Nokia had a command over 70% of the Indian GSM handset market but now the scenario has changed now.

Consumers who can make calls at 30 Paisa /min or half a paisa /sec are no longer willing to pay Rs 1200 for a handset, In contrast newer players like Miromax and Karbonn and even operator Vodafone Essar are offering devices in the Rs 800-900 range. As a result Nokia’s market share has tumbled. In April-June 2009 Nokia’s market share was 51.4% which has nose-dived to 39.3%.The Giant didn’t fall overnight, path was laid down with the launching of Apple iphone in 2007 and then entry in India in 2008, August.Young users were willing to pay Rs.30000 for iphone and rural consumers unwilling to pay Rs.900 for basic phone.

However Nokia has tried to enhance their services like launch of Nokia Life Tools service for farmers and selling handsets in rural market through ITC’s e-chaupal network.But Nokia’s buggest handicap was the delay in launching a dual-sim phone.Although Nokia has launched these mobiles in September,but the market had been covered by companies like Zen Mobile,Micromax and Karbonn.The next threat to Nokia in India was Chinese handsets which do not pay taxes and other levies to the govt. as a result of which exchequer loses Rs.100 crore every month.

With the entry of smartphones from Apple and Google who are providing vibrant application ecosystem, the Indian handset market will be divided into three segments.At lower end ,it would be the Indian and Chinese manufacturers, the middle would be occupied by Nokia and the higher segment ruled by manufacturers like Apple,Blackberry and the android-based handsets.

Nokia believes that its devices are for all-youth,rural users, smart-phones users ,but only time will show us who’s gonna be the leader.