Nokia's N96 to take on competition

Nokia 95, since its launch 18 months back, has sold over 10 million units (Apple’s full-year target for the 3G iPhone’s worldwide sales). If the numbers are any indication, the September 16 launch of the N96 from Nokia holds great promise, according to analysts.

The smartphone, priced at Rs 34,999, is also expected to affect Apple iPhone’s sales in India. “The applications and content that are being pre-bundled with the N96 will be a big draw for users looking for a multimedia-rich, GPS-based device,” says Devinder Kishore, director (marketing), Nokia India.

Although Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza opines, “To stay competitive, Nokia will need to introduce more design variations among its N-series models and keep innovating. The expected introduction of a touch-screen smartphone in the second half of 2008 will test the company’s capability to show differentiation and innovation.” The N96 pre-bookings, which began in the last week of August, have been encouraging.

“Hundreds of our customers have paid Rs 4,000 to pre-book N96 and pre-bookings have been better for N96 than for N95.” Nokia had introduced pre-booking programme in India with N95 smartphone but did not give out the exact number. It is estimated that N96 pre-bookings would be pretty close, if not more than what Apple iPhone listed. Airtel alone registered around 200,000 pre-bookings for iPhone, only these were without any prior payment.

India, which overtook the US in the second quarter of last year to become Nokia’s second-largest market, could be a good playground for N96 sales, according to Kishore. “The N96 will be the first mobile device to offer a memory size of 16GB expandable to 24GB through an external micro SD card. There is no phone that can claim this feat.”

The phone also comes pre-loaded with a Bollywood film Om Shanti Om, 50 music videos, 100 evergreen Hindi and 100 English soundtracks and 3 N-gage games. The Nokia N96 also contains maps of India, Singapore and UAE with a 3-month navigation license for 8 cities across India.

Despite the buoyant outlook for N96 in India, Nokia has forecasted a loss in its market share, citing Nokia’s tactical decision of not meeting aggressive pricing by some competitors, including the entry markets and the temporary impact of a slower ramp-up of a mid-range Nokia device. And is look at different genres in the space.