Ups and Downs of NOKIA
Jayraj Gadhavi
C0728279
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Introduction:
Which was the first cell phone brand that your family had? For 90% people, around the world from 90’s it was Nokia, as it served as our ambassador to the wireless world, letting us experience for the first time what it truly meant to be unfettered from landlines and payphones. From making rubber boots in a pulp mill to leading the world in mobile phones to selling the company to Microsoft, Nokia have faced many ups and downs through the journey.
The main reason behind the success in early stage is as under:
• Extensive Research and Development
The reasons behind the failure are as follow:
• Nokia moved too slowly
• Lack of Innovation
• Hurting on both ends
Extensive Research and Development:
Nokia has many manufacturing plants and research ; development facilities across the globe. According to the Strategy Analytics “In December 2009, Nokia had Research & Development (R&D) sites in 16 countries and engaged 37,020 people in R&D, representing around 30% of the Nokia’s total employees. The Nokia’s Research Centre consists of nearly 500 researchers, scientists and engineers and has locations in seven countries” (as cited in Wired, 2012). Through extensive research the company maintained the quality of calling, hardware, and battery. Although, Nokia has to work on its software as they are not good in that portion as compared to the other rival companies.
Nokia moved too slowly:
Nokia was a pioneer in the smartphone market, literally introducing consumers to the smartphones with its initial Symbian Series 60 devices in 2002. For the next five years, Symbian phones had little trouble maintaining a leadership position in the smartphone pack as in 2007, Apple introduced its iPhone. According to Wayne Lam, IHS senior analyst “As the years passed, the Symbian platform aged, and that age really showed when compared to iOS and, later, Android. They didn’t make the leap of faith onto Windows Phone until 2011. Now they are suffering from their slow response” (as cited in Wired, 2012). By not updating its system, Nokia didn’t fulfil its customers’ expectations as in today’s modern world people want their cell phones’ software to be updated and also their phones to be attractive.
Lack of innovation:
While Samsung comes up with new phones every year with a slight modification from the previous launch, Nokia’s Windows phone which came in 2011 lacked some basic technology essential to drive its sales.
CIOL bureau stats that:
Nokia’s Lumia series was launched with a bang, but didn’t click. Reasons can be its design, which wasn’t as attractive as Samsung phones or the iPhone. Today the sale of phones is dependent on how shiny or trendy it looks, Nokia phones didn’t have the front camera, which makes it not even 3G enabled. And we are on the threshold of entering the 4G era. (CIOL bureau, 2012)
So, Nokia’s latest phones were feature ready, but not future ready.
Losing market share on both ends:
Nokia not only failed to realize competition from Apple, Samsung, Sony, Blackberry in high end smart phones, they also failed to notice the stiff competition in the lower segments of phones. According to Alex Spektor, Strategy Analytics analyst “They were also squeezed at the bottom by micro vendors, which individually are not very big, but when you add them up they pose a threat in the low-end of the market” (as cited in Wired, 2012). Very lately company realized this thing and launched their Asha series but by that time they had already lost the game.
Conclusion:
From being an pioneer company in cellular devices in its early stage by introducing the world to the cell phones to losing its shares from both higher and lower end markets to selling the company to Microsoft, Nokia has faced many ups and downs through its journey from 1967 till now as it didn’t manage to fulfil customers’ need by not updating its system compared to other rival companies.
References:
Chang, A. (2012, April 27). 5 reasons why Nokia lost its handset sales lead and got downgraded to ‘Junk’. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com
Reasons Nokia Success (2009, July 19). Retrieved from http://www.studymode.com
Kamboj, K. (2014, September 26). Failure of Nokia. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net
The rise, dominance, and epic fall – a brief look at Nokia’s history. (2015, August 12). Retrieved from https://www.gsmarena.com
Cheng, R. (2014, April 25). Farewell Nokia: The rise and fall of a mobile pioneer. Retrieved from https://www.cnet.com
MBA-lectures. (2010, November 26). Key success factors of Nokia. Retrieved from http://mba-lectures.com
CIOL Bureau. (2012, April 29). Three reasons why Nokia failed. Retrieved from http://www.ciol.com
