PhoneBoy’s thoughts on Nokia’s USA situation
By Stefan Constantinescu on Sunday, February 25th, 2007 at 1:06 PM PST In Ideas and rants
In the meeting this past week, I got a rare opportunity to ask someone in management a point-blank question. While I can’t write everything he said, I can share an interesting fact that was mentioned in his response.Carrier customizations take a lot of work, especially in the US. US carriers have some rather unique requirements for handsets. And even if the work is done to meet those very specific requirements, the carrier can come back and say “we’re not going to carry the phone.†While I don’t have any exact figures on what that some of that work runs, it’s wasted money all the same. I suspect that was one of the reasons that phones take so long to come out here in the US, if they come out at all, is carrier customizations for the US market.
Read the whole thing, it really hits home that Nokia (NYSE: NOK) just doesn’t want to waste their resources peddling to the carriers needs when they have so much more money to make elsewhere.
As a US customer: I don’t care. I import. You should too!
His idea’s for improving Nokia’s situation:
- More online retailers
- More physical shops (target indirect resellers)
- Direct from nokiausa.com, which I’ve seen done with some phones at least
- In Nokia Flagshp Stores
- Put some mobile phone vending machines out there
Jive perfectly with what I suggested less than 2 weeks ago.
Idle ideas are useless. Who will be the one that is going to step up and talk to the top brass within the company?
Is it going to be you PhoneBoy? Tommi? Phil? Jouni?
All it takes is one mobile phone maker to show Americans that they can get awesome, hip, advanced devices from someone other than their operator and the chain reaction will occur.
Other phone makers will follow. An industry will be born.
It is too much of an operator / carrier - centric market here. And while operators in other countries often requests for more features, local carriers seems to be limiting features… plus, U.S. in general has been slow to adopt the latest technology, not so much the people, but the geography of things… it’s not easy to roll out WCDMA coverage for example. Especially when more than half the country is on the CDMA rather than GSM bandwagon. So why spend the money on a 3G phone, when you can’t make use of half the features (fast downloads, video telephony, on demand videos…). Even in areas of 3G coverage, the frequency used is different (1900 vs 2100). Or, perhaps spend a little less on a “dumbed down” version of the same phone available in other markets? Why not just go with a “free after rebate and contract” flip phone? (Well actually Nokia was doing pretty well in the “free phone” market.) I think not only does Nokia need to strategize ways to promote the advanced phones here, consumer thinking and carrier expectations need to change too.
i interesed seeking this program
Starting Q3, Nokia will be offering all of their european variants phones online. YOu will need a SIM card (att-CINGULAR, or T-Mobile) to use these phones.
Keep checking Dell.com, Gateway.com, Walmart.com, MobilePlanet.com, Circuitcity.com, Letstalk.com, and NokiaUSA.com. They’ve finally come.