Looking through their last 10-K (actually called something else), the data speaks volumes – from 2002 to 2003, Nokia had the following declines: -2% in Finland, -4% in USA, -13% in Britain, +24% in Germany, -28% in China (very scary), and +2% growth in the “other category” – which includes India. Overall, they had declines of -2% across all markets.

But Om – specifically in India – it sounds like brand matters – will this benefit Nokia?

Thoughts appreciated….

i am currently working on a piece on the handset business and hopefully it will be out by end of the week. it will give you a complete low down on nokia and other brands. however, nokia sells well here, except those models which are cheap enough for the consumers. nokia is not the premium brand here – sony ericsson is. and when people think handsets, well it is mostly samsung and LG

The days when Nokia could make success out of industry where others were not even making profits on is maybe gone. Still, by the numbers Nokia is FAR from dead and could probably do negative profits(which it isn’t doing) for few _years_ before facing ‘the end’(when compared to other players they are huge).

SE has zero snob appeal here anyways(except p900).

and the biggest market doesn’t care about snob values either, they just want a trusty phone(that is why 3330 has been manufactured at least near to this day, even though it’s an ooooold model).

what’s the deal with email being ‘optional’, yet it’s required?

With players like Reliance Infocomm (my employer) pushing for making the cell phones more accessible by reducing the call rates, you can bet that this market is set of explode.

And inspite of other models having trendy hi-end handsets, there is something comforting, reliable and robust about a Nokia handset. I personally use Nokia 2100 after a bad experience with a Motorola handset.

This blog post was a great read overall.

Cheers,
Dhar