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Nokia Turns To Android To Regain Share In Emerging Markets
puddingebola writes "Nokia is preparing to release its first Android phone, as the lost market share in emerging markets from the death of Symbian has never been recovered. Windows Phone could never be adapted to the entry level devices that have driven growth in these markets, necessitating the move. From the article, 'Nokia was once the king of cellphones in emerging markets. But it has lost ground because it was slow to respond to Android's popularity in many countries. In India, where Nokia's Symbian-powered phones held a big share of cellphone sales just a few years ago, Android was installed on 93% of new smartphones shipped there last year, according to estimates from research firm IDC.'"
Seriously, who's going to buy a Nokia Android phone when you know they've been bought by Microsoft and won't care one bit about supporting it? Same as the Maemo/MeeGo based phones that Nokia released after the Nokia/Microsoft deal was announced, it's stillborn. And unlike those who might have some unique features this is yet another Android phone that you can get from other companies, so it makes even less sense. Nokia must be running out of feet to shoot itself in.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
And just how much of this can be laid at the feet of Microsoft?
Because once Stephen Elop got in there, he took what was a profitable company and turned it into a dog by changing their focus.
Microsoft doesn't care about Nokia, they care about having a division which makes Microsoft phones.
That Nokia is now realizing they might need to embrace Android to turn things around means it's going to be interesting to see when Microsoft finishes buying them. Because there's no way Redmond is going to allow them to make phones running anything but Microsoft stuff.
Microsoft has been nothing but bad for the viability of Nokia, and I don't see that changing in the future.
Because, really, these are appalling numbers:
Elop was either grossly incompetent, or was there to lower the price of the company for the take over. Because he sure as hell failed to actually grow the company or do anything good for it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If I can get a high-end Lumia and have Android, that would be amazing.
It's very likely that Nokia tested Android on its phones when it wanted Microsoft to close the deal, this is probably a false alarm born from those prototypes.
It makes no sense at all for MS to release an Android phone, and I doubt Nokia can release it and sell it in numbers before April (aquisition date), so I don't expect it to happen.
If it actually does come out, I see only two explanations. 1) Nokia is trying to scare MS from sealing the deal. 2) it's a thinly veiled attempt at saying "we tried Android but our customers would not want it". Most likely the former.
Whoever let this happen is going to be fired first thing in the new regime, I guess. If MS does not stomp it hard, it would look clueless. Unless MS wants to go Android, which I won't believe until I see it.
Sorry but if you think that Android is free I have some land on the moon I'd like to sell you. I doubt that Nokia can just build a device and throw Android on it and it works out of the box. Nothing is that easy...
Do it right. your flagship phones, rip that garbage Windows OS off of them and install Android. I would LOVE your 900megapixel phone with a nice clean Android 4.4 on it.
you could get it to market in 30 days, no hardware to change. Want it faster?? contact the Android hackers and tell them how to unlock the bootloader and give them full details on the hardware. You will have android ported to it within the week.
You will INSTANTLY gain market share.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well, it's not going to work well to capture emerging markets. Most windows phones are pretty high end, and not in the price range of consumers in emerging markets.
Microsoft hasn't exactly cornered the high end market either...
#DeleteChrome
That is all.
Is never too late, and with the vast amount of crappy Android phones in mid/low markets, the have a couple of segments where they can be a hit.
And even in the high end, I'm sure many of the Samsung Galaxy, and HTC users are already bored of the lines and want something fresh.
TMobile has sold the Windows-based Nokia Lumia 521 for $100 (non contract) for half a year or a year now. It's supposed to be a pretty decent phone for the low-end. $100 is already pretty low, and surely with the continual progress of hardware they could install the phone OS on $50 hardware.
Android has become the de facto standard, and people would have to have some compelling reason to choose Windows phone over the system everybody else has.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
It was corporate suicide for Nokia to go with Windows Phone. Maybe Microsoft waved a large wad of money under their noses. Maybe Elop's intention all along was to drive the corp into the ground and clean up from its sale. Whatever happened, they really fucked up big time with their choice.
I don't understand. They have a completely open source operating system. Why should that automagically give everyone unrestricted rights to all of Google's services?
Just because I needed to buy a copy of a program doesn't make Linux any less free and open source. And by extension there are several other Android platforms out there which don't have any of Google's Services including the app store, (see Amazon, B&N etc)
It hasn't moved any functionality out of Android. Just because the Google Play Music app exists doesn't mean the old app has stopped working. Just because Google Cards is now the default search on their phones, doesn't mean the old Google Search stopped, and by extension just because Google is forcing man+dog to the G+ platform won't mean that the SMS app suddenly stops sending SMSes. In fact I'm willing to bet that the apps will happily interact.
Short Term:
- Start by making near stock (all Google app.) phone.
- Raise patent licensing fees for all Android phone makers other than MS/Nokia.
- Use cost advantage + internal Exchange/Office interoperability to grow userbase of consumers and businesspeople respectively; make MSNokia _THE_ brand to get for users that concurrently like Android & MS Windows.
- Start user conversions by first running MS apps alongside Google ones and giving incentives {free MS docs, Exchange, web storage, MS Live single sign on.}
Long term:
- Wholesale replacement of all Google apps.
- Integrate maps to gain data collection. Nokia already had mapping dept. that MS bought earlier.
- Bing (Cortana???) voice search for greater user base & data mining.
- Increase MS patent fee on other Android OEMs.
- Sell license to MSNokia "Android" at sweetheart price.
- Use market share to introduce & push new MS specific features/products.
I'd like to imagine there will be heavy growth in augmented reality; the above tactics could ostensibly help MS capture a signfiicant smartphone user base , but strategically may leave market wide open for Apple/Google/Samsung to gain first mover advantage in emergent non-phone continuously/immersively-networked consumer field...
-- The Walter Gretsky quote "skate where the puck's going, not where it's been" would be partially applicable in that case leaving MS playing catchup WRT creating, integrating, and tuning new communication/computing usage modalities. If MS focus must be split between native MS os phone, Nokia Android, and emergent markets; the combinatorial use cases could result in significant user-experience consistency issues along with QA & time-to-market headaches for MSNokia product management.