Nokia fights back in smartphones

Smartphone market leader Nokia with 34 per cent market share in India is feeling the heat of tough competition — not only from Apple and Research in Motion’s (RIM) Blackberry, but also from home-grown phone makers which are offering feature-rich mobile phones at dirt cheap prices.

But the Finnish giant is fighting back in a segment that offers higher profit than basic voice and text phones. In a bid to strengthen its presence in smartphones, Nokia is launching a slew of devices such as N8, C5, C6 and a new communicator priced aggressively to gain market share. Nokia’s touch screen based N8 is the latest effort by the company, which has recently appointed Microsoft’s Stephen Elop as chief executive officer, to win back market share from iPhone and Android devices.

Nokia N8 has an anodized aluminum case surrounding a 3.5-inch screen and can stream on-demand television services.

“The Nokia N8, the first of our Symbian 3 devices, will have a user experience superior to that of any smartphone we have created. We would also change Indian shoppers’ views that Nokia devices aren’t as fun or easy to use as others,” says V. Ramnath, director (operator channel), Nokia India. The world’s biggest handset maker, Nokia has 38 per cent share of the global smartphone market, according to Canalys reports.

 “By next year, Nokia will have a host of smartphone devices based on the new Symbian 3, competing in the mid range smartphone market. This should tilt consumers towards the brand,” says Ramnath.

But that could still be a tough task as Nokia now faces huge competition from other players like Samsung, which has been winning worldwide carrier support for its Android-based Galaxy S handset. And, Microsoft will unveil phones using the Windows Phone 7 operating system today.

Analysts say Nokia will need more app store support to compete effectively at the high end of the smartphone market.  Nokia has announced enhancements to the Qt Software Development Kit (SDK), but its Ovi app store has a long way to go before it can catch up with the Apple iPhone and Google Android app stores in terms of applications and downloads.

Nokia is also extending its range of 3G handsets, ahead of the service launch expected by the end of the year. Of the 35-40 models that Nokia sells in India, 20 are 3G enabled. The prices of 3G enabled devices range from Rs 4,600 per handset, and go up to Rs 25,000. Viral Oza, head (online marketing), Nokia India, says one of Nokia’s  recent launches — the C3 series — offers one click access to e-mail, chat and social networking. The device also allows alerts from social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter on the home screen, which can be customised by the user.