Nokia looking to cheap smartphones to recapture market
By Will Park on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 2:02 PM PST In Nokia
Nokia’s the biggest name in the mobile space, hands down. But, that doesn’t mean they necessarily offer the most compelling consumer smartphones on market. Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s smartphone influence has recently been overshadowed by media-darling devices like the iPhone, G1, BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Storm and HTC Touch Pro. With market share and sales volume both on the decline, Nokia’s looking to a tried and true strategy to help recapture the smartphone market. Nokia will apparently be pushing affordable smartphones to try and reach a wider range of consumers.
Nokia CEO lli-Pekka Kallasvuo told Dagens Nyheterin that Nokia “intends to expand by offering smartphones at lower prices to reach more consumers.”
Nokia’s high-end Nseries and Eseries flagship smartphones may grab headlines for Nokia, but the Finnish cellphone giant’s bread-and-butter business comes from low-end dumbphones that pervade both established and emerging markets alike. And, Nokia has already seen that cheap smartphones, like its Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Nokia E71 devices, can sell like hotcakes in established markets. So, it makes sense that Nokia is looking to gain lost smartphone market share by offering cheaper smartphones for the masses.
It should be interesting to see how Nokia plays the touchscreen-smartphone game to compete with the likes of Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), Samsung, HTC and BlackBerry.
[Via: UnwiredView]
The E71 is “cheap”? Careful… :->