After three long years of being the most trusted brand in India, Nokia has slipped to 5th place. Some might ask why did it take so long for them to lose their pole position in light of all the competition from low cost Android devices? Consider that Nokia makes devices that are actually cheap enough for people who live on the equivalent of the change you find under your sofa cushions. Nokia handsets also tend to be built better than what competitors offers, and also last longer between charges. Anyway, you’re not going to believe which brand has won consumer’s hearts … it’s Colgate. That’s right, the company that makes toothpaste. So why did Nokia lose face in one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world? For one thing, Nokia was incredibly late to the market with dual SIM devices. Many consumers carry more than one SIM card in order to save money, kind of like how people in rich Western Countries want to join the same network their friends are on to save money. But now Nokia has multiple dual SIM devices out, so what else is responsible for Nokia’s loss?
The hottest selling devices in India aren’t smartphones, they’re low to mid range feature phones. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to most folks since a 2011 feature phone does practically everything today’s smartphones do, albeit without multitasking and often with a much smaller screen. India’s phone makers (Micromax, Spice, and Karbonn) know this and are thus able to create much more compelling products than what foreign players have on offer. It’s also a pride thing, as an Indian you want to buy a phone that was designed and built in your country. Nokia may have a huge factory in India, but the devices they make there were designed by a bunch of guys in either Finland, Denmark, or China.