Nokia dominated the headlines at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last weekend, as it unveiled a new range of Android Smartphones made by its Finnish licensor HMD Global, which has a 10-year lease on the country's most iconic brand.
Analysts were impressed, especially by the emotionally charged relaunch of a modern version 3310 handset
— with Snake and all.
As the launch buzz is settling, the question becomes, how can the new Nokia under HMD Global actually become a leading player in smartphone markets?
HMD Global’s CEO Arto Nummela, who did an almost Apple-like keynote performance at MWC, seems to have a clear vision of the reimagined Nokia phone brand.
While HMD refuses to name itself an "iPhone killer" or a "Samsung tackler", its goal is to postion Nokia as a European option to the three market leaders Apple, Samsung and Huawei — with a broad price range.
"Nokia brings an injection of energy into the smartphone market, which has been fairly boring and wearisome for a long time,” Pekka Rantala, Chief Marketing Officer at HMD Global, says to Kauppalehti .
In the last few months, Nummela and Rantala have leveraged the Nokia brand in buildinging up a global network of more than 500 retailers: “Not a single [distributor] has yet declined to distribute Nokia," says Rantala.
"We want to become one of the leading smartphone manufacturers. But you will not break into the top three unless you sell 100 million units a year. We'll go out agressively and we're setting ambitious growth goals for each year," he continues.
But the challengers are far ahead: Samsung sold 300 million smartphones last year, Apple 216 million iPhones, whereas the Chinese challenger Huawei surpassed 130 million, says Kauppalehti.
With its Android smartphones, HMD Global is initially targeting the mid-price range in the world’s biggest smartphone market, China, where sales have already shown promising signs.
"Half of the world’s population who has a smartphone buys their phone within this price range. That’s where we’ve started, where the greatest volumes are,” Rantala says to Kauppalehti.
In order to grow into a market leader, Rantala says, the company needs to penetetrate the U.S. market as well, probably with higher end models, but Rantala does not reveal when these would be realeased.
A further edge could come from its wide appeal, in both developed and emerging markets, according to Rantala.
"It’s able to maintain credibility by selling 15 dollar phones to India and 1000 euro phones to Finland at the same time. I’m trying to take good care of the brand, so that the product managers can create a very comprehensive product portfolio,” he continues.
Rantala is confident about the effect of the Nokia brand has in building a foothold among consumers. He tells Kauppalehti:
“The best amplifier for our visibility are the consumers. Stories circulate among them. That’s the best way to build the Nokia brand.”
HMD has a big task ahead of it, but the early signs indicate that the "big three" should keep their eyes on this Finnish challenger as it gets ready to launch its new phones.
Source: Business Insider
