Nokia cares about China. There are obvious reasons for this - China (in January 2005) had the world's largest telecom market by subscribers, with about 340 million mobile users, but a mobile penetration rate of merely 25.9%. For comparison, the mobile penetration rates in countries like Italy, Sweden and the UK have hit 100%. If you're in the mobile business - China's market looks like it's the best in the world - and Nokia has been doing well there. In 2004, local revenue was $3.5 billion, up 44% from 2003, and Bank of America Securities recently said that "Nokia continues to dominate and gain market share" in China.
But how much love does Nokia have?
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Nokia cares about China. There are obvious reasons for this - China (in January 2005) had the world's largest telecom market by subscribers, with about 340 million mobile users, but a mobile penetration rate of merely 25.9%. For comparison, the mobile penetration rates in countries like Italy, Sweden and the UK have hit 100%. If you're in the mobile business - China's market looks like it's the best in the world - and Nokia has been doing well there. In 2004, local revenue was $3.5 billion, up 44% from 2003, and Bank of America Securities recently said that "Nokia continues to dominate and gain market share" in China.
But how much love does Nokia have?
We have two indicators for you. First, Nokia has six R&D units, four manufacturing sites and widespread operations in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The total number of Nokia employees in China area is nearly 6,000, and Nokia today announced its plans to expand its mobile device production in Dongguan, China.
The second, more exciting indicator (to us) comes from the Nokia N80's device specification page on Forum Nokia. We quote:
"The Nokia N80 smart multimedia device is the first 3G world phone with EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 2100 for Europe, Africa and APAC regions, EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 1900 for Americas region and EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 for China market. A three-megapixel digital camera, email, MP3 player, personal organizer, game console and WLAN connectivity, makes the N80 Nokia's most advanced all-in-one device yet."
Note the reference to a device for the China Market - this would be the second time that Nokia has done this - the N70 received similar treatment - and so we should now also expect a Nokia N80-5, to go with the already FCC-approved North American Nokia N80-3 and the Europe/Asia Nokia N80-1.
This is great news for Nokia lovers in China (we must state here that Nokia has always produced pretty decent chinese interfaces for their phones - even as far back as the Nokia 8210 chinese SMS's were fairly easy to do) but this practice brings Nokia's new branding strategy into sharp relief.
Is it a good or a bad thing to call three very different devices the same name? There are two main areas where this might cause customer confusion: lets approach them in turn. First, we have the issue of worldwide portability - or being able to use the phone elsewhere in the world. Second, we have the issue of customers purchasing the wrong handset for use in their native country.
Our opinion is that worldwide portability is less of an issue, because travellers overseas are likely not to expect as much from their phones. This has (unfortunately) been ingrained into them by operators everywhere. The situation might change with time, with the creation of new alliances, but by and large getting any sort of data support outside your native country can be a horrible experience, and also extremely expensive. SMS and voice support is almost always supported, particularly because many handsets are now quadband.
The situation is not so rosy when we consider purchasing. In places like the UK, handsets are massively subsidized on contract, which would lead to an expectation that almost no-one would buy handsets out of contract, but this expectation is probably wrong - Look at the number of mobile phone stores along Oxford Street, and the number of handsets sold on eBay.uk everyday. What happens to the punter who buys an "N80" from eBay in the US (possibly an attractive proposition), then realises he cannot make video calls with his shiny new phone in merrie olde englande?
We think that this might be an issue - but the only loser will be that customer - who didn't do his homework. Nokia in a sense has (and had) no choice. It's a real pity in this decade of globalization that frequency standards are not standard.
What to do? Well - make sure you know which phone you're buying, exactly. Check the model number behind the battery.
