Is the Nokia party tomorrow to celebrate the new partners in the retail channel? *UPDATE*
By Stefan Constantinescu on Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 2:18 AM PST In Nokia
Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is holding a huge party today (or tomorrow depending on your time zone) and I’m trying to figure out what exactly are they going to announce? It was publically stated that this event was not for the launch of a new product, but instead to celebrate Nokia’s efforts in America, California especially:
The LA Mansion party is a celebration of our new and exciting Nokia Nseries fall product portfolio as well as a recognition of Nokia Nseries increasing sales and marketing presence in California. In other words, we won’t be announcing any new devices, we’ll be showing the devices that have been announced to our California base.
The 2 page ad in the NY Times got me thinking that I must be ignoring something, I decided to check out nseries.com/open again and after clicking “where to buy” I think I got the hint as to what is so special. Nokia is announcing a massive retail effort, partnering with shops that sell phones instead of going after the operators. Here is a rough list so far:
- Wireless Toyz
- BestBuy Mobile
- MacMall (the iRony)
- PCMall
- Wireless Station
- Banana Wireless
- Priemer Mobile
- S&L Wireless
- Phone 2 Go
- UCLA (sell direct to students?)
- etc
Will this direct to consumer push impact Nokia relations with American operators? Am I completly wrong about this announcement? Time will tell!
Update: It seems like a few bloggers that write about the Nokia Internet Tablet were invited. Will be see a new tablet? Also, one thing that further adds to my theory in this post is the fact that the word of mouth marketing people are encouraging everyone to use a channel on Jaiku called “Nokia Nseries Unlock Events.” Unlocked as in straight to consumer sales, forget about operators.
Good to see the new retail push by Nokia.
I don’t think it will necessarily hurt their relations with operators, at least not yet. In fact, if operators see that N-Series sells EVEN without any operator subsidies, they may want to take them into their lineup. Also, IF the retail push is ONLY for N-Series, that leaves a ton of feature/S40 phones and numbered S60 devices stil for the operators to grab.
The “unlock” reference in the Jaiku feed is indeed interesting. However, it COULD also just be about the theme of “N95 is Open” (which I love btw: so IN YOUR FACE iPhone.. lol).
I would not be suprised to see a US oriented Internet Tablet announced, likely the one that was listed on FCC.
Btw, the N-Series retail page where I can insert a zip code to look for nearest retailers is either not working (the list below the zip code box does not get updated although the map does; it keeps showing the list for NYC stores), OR, there just isn’t anything in the DC area…
Jari in DC