Nokia carves out route to woo in 1b new mobile users

Nokia Mobile Phone Senior VP Soren Petersen presents the expansion plan at the event

Considering any consumer growth market, the mobile phone market surely stands out. When the global mobile phone subscription crossed 2 billion in 2005, everyone thought it reached its peak. But the market only yawned back then. Nokia, the global mobile phone giant estimates that the next billion will come by the year 2008.

At the event in the city of fog, Chongqing, Nokia boosted its commitment to make mobile communications more affordable and accessible to a broader range of subscribers in the new growth markets such as China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Africa. Understanding the low-income group consumers Nokia has targeted their innovations at basic entry level mobile phones capable of expressing day-to-day needs with user friendly utilities.

Keeping the consumer value proposition in mind, Nokia have launched three new models, which are easy to use, reliable and attractive at the same time and are capable of ensuring services such as voice and text, wide coverage and prepayment. Keeping in mind that affordable connectivity is the consumer value proposition, Nokia also wants to bring down the total cost of ownership of a phone to US$5per month.

At a media workshop for the Indian and Bangladeshi journalists held on the following day, Antonio Torres, director, business development and industry marketing of entry business unit mobile phones of Nokia, said, "Nokia in collaboration with Grameen Foundation USA (GFUSA) is working on projects to bring affordable, accessible telecommunications to rural areas in Africa through micro finance, we may consider that type of mission in Bangladesh and India after evaluating the project outcome in Africa."

While demonstrating the network solutions for the new growth markets, Rauno Granath, director, new growth markets and networks of Nokia, elaborated the tools for lowering the total cost of ownership of a mobile phone in new growth markets. He introduced easy to use, reliable and affordable entry terminals, network solutions such as optimised radio coverage and capacity, cost effective site solutions, mobile soft-switch architecture; business models and service enablers such as Nokia Connect eRefill, Prepaid Tracker, and Connect Market Expansion Toolkit that can reduce the cost at the operator's end.

Soren Petersen, senior vice president, entry business unit mobile phones of Nokia, divided the consumers into three categories -- mainstream users: whose priorities are voice calls, good display, practical features and aesthetics; tech novices: who want easy to use, durable and affordable phones; and finally advanced users: who want the latest models, rich features and innovative phones.

Based on the categories of users and in-depth consumer insight, Nokia prepared their products and solutions that resonates with consumers in the growth markets, having features such as icons, radio, graphic phonebook, speaking clock, prepaid tracker, audio messaging, flashlight etc. The three new models that Nokia unveiled at the event were Nokia 1112, Nokia 2610 and the Nokia 2310.

Nokia 1112
Nokia 1112 has a user interface that makes use of icons that look great and large sized fonts that make navigating the phone much easier. This phone will have a speaking clock and an alarm. The 1112 weighs just 80 grams and has up to 5 hours talk time and 15 hours standby time, comes in a range of colours. This phone will hopefully be on the market in the second quarter of 2006 in all regions except China.

Nokia 2610
This has a great design and cool features and would suit the business mind as it offers email support and WAP browser for mobile internet access, has MMS and Xpress Audio messaging which is great for recording and editing messages while on the move. Nokia 2610 has a rubber like finish, which improves grip.

Colour display is featured with a mirrored finish, and with features such as MP3 ring tones, voice recorder, expanded memory up to 300 entries, and hands free speaker it weighs 91 grams. The talk time is up to 3 hours with a standby time of about 12 days and will come in a range of colours.

Nokia 2310
If you love fashion, style and music then this 2310 is for you, with a compact design this will fit in any fashionable quarter. This phone has short cut keys that will get the FM radio going and which has sound visualisation graphics that move to the music, MP3 ring tones are featured as well.

SMS editor is great as well because this makes sure you do not delete messages by accident plus it has SMS speed dial. Nokia 2310 comes with prepaid tracker which is a network supported application and which will automatically update your prepaid account balance after each call or message. This mobile phone weighs 85 grams and has a talk time of up to 6 hours with standby time of up to 16 days.