Nokia’s low end phones: Return of the prodigy

Nokia’s high end game may be all but over, but my personal opinion is that it is taking all the right moves to firmly establish itself in the low end markets such as Asia and Africa. These are markets of the future and Nokia’s combination of services and devices is a sound strategy to garner a kings share to itself. Nokia has made email, navigation and music free and most of the users in 3rd world nations will possibly use Nokia’s as their first computer.

Nokia C1 Pics

However, this post isn’t about Nokia’s services. Over the last 2 years, white label Chinese manufacturers had started taking the low end markets away from Nokia with an aggressive feature-price combo. Nokia was seen struggling against dual SIM phones with dirt cheap features and expandable memories.

Nokia C2 Pics

Devices being its core strength, Nokia has finally hit back at the wannabees with its first two dual SIM phones, code named C1 and C2. While the C1 which is priced at 30 Euros and features a FM, Flashlight, 3.5mm headset jack,1.8” screen, possibly a 1000 mAH Battery. For most of it, this phone is handicapped by lack of Expandable T Flash Memory. However the real monty is the C2 with FM, Hot-swappable SIM (access to the second SIM card without opening battery i.e phone running), Memory Expandable upto 32GB, Mp3 Player, Nokia Life Tools, Ovi Mail, VGA Camera, Bluetooth, GPRS, possibly a 1000 mAH Battery at a price tag of EUR 45. At that price the feature combo is a rocker and would help Nokia tide over the low end market share crisis. What’s going to help Nokia is its services portfolio which in times to come will acquire size and scale and will be critical to Nokia’s market share plans.

What can still upset the Nokia’s apple cart is an integrated effort by the handset eco-system: Operators, Handset manufacturers, Mobile Network Enabler and Developer communities.

A business case for Nokia’s Rs.500 ($10) phone

Reports suggest that Nokia readies a made in India Rs.500 ($10) phone for showing in the Mobile World Congress (Barcelona)

In 2004, Nokia changed the rules of the mobile handhelds game by launching the Nokia 1100. The Nokia 1100 was a true “fortune at the bottom of pyramid” waiting to happen for Nokia. This opened up Asian markets and Nokia took unassailable positions in emerging markets. The rules of the game changed to cost of ownership formulas for the less privileged. Mobiles became the common man’s device. Combined with falling tariffs, the Nokia 1100 was the start of the Telecom revolution in Afro-Asian countries. The Mobile was a now a device available to 60% of the world population.

A few years later, Motorola tried to change the rules of the game by introducing the F115. The thought was that the ultra low cost F115 would redefine the market for Motorola which was already doing well (remember the Razrs and Slivers?). However the move backfired for Motorola and they were stuck with escalating inventories and the decline is well documented.

Now after 4 years, Nokia under pressure from cheap OEM brands will attempt to redefine the market with a $10 phone. I am assuming that this phone will be a basic communication device only: No frills, no extras. It is also safe to assume that Nokia will have to bet on huge volumes on such costs and razor sharp margins. I am expecting a 1” or even lesser screen. Here’s a critical analysis of what such a device means for Nokia and Industry as a whole:

1. There is a considerable risk in such high volumes. This is a bet Nokia “must win”. The product and its launch cannot afford failure. A few News reports mention this to be a “limited edition” effort. A rs.500 limited edition effort actually doesnot make any sense apart from a few PR releases.
2. Again Nokia “goes alone”. No eco-system or Telecom operator partnerships. Nokia had a few partnerships with operators but this effort is clearly in line with Nokia core thought of doing it alone on big projects.
3. Nokia actually competes with itself in this category. The seconds market of Nokia is what it is trying to cannibalize in order to promote its customer base.
4. One thought that flashes my mind is a reverse logistics system that could reuse old Nokia phones exchanged for new Nokia handsets. Clearly, this is not considered as a viable option in the African and Asian markets by Nokia.
5. Nokia also faces a threat from “Zero cost” handsets. OEMs and Telecom operators are mulling the viability of a Zero Cost/Free Lifetime Call options on handsets for luring subscribers.
6. Nokia is steadily building a platform, Nokia Life Tools for services to the rural economy. This platform is gathering strength. The Rs.500 basic phone may drive this effort. The Rs.500 device may also be subsidized by the service charges in the long term.
7. By my estimates, the minimum costs of manufacturing a basic device is $12. Assuming a total expense of $5 on other incidentals (Marketing, Logistics, Overheads etc), Nokia would take an initial hit of $7 (~Rs.350).
8. If the Nokia Life Tools ARPU is Rs.35-40 per month ($.8-.9 per month), the break even would be 10 months or so. (These are very basic calculations, but knowing the minds behind the initiative, this Math looks to be the rational driving the effort)

My final thoughts on the Rs.500 Nokia Phone is that the first launch is likely to be a Pilot (hence the Limited edition release). Nokia would study the sales of the device and the distribution of its services through the phone. The cost of the phone would initially be a negative for Nokia but increasing absorption of its Nokia Life Tools services may provide the platform to subsidize the costs. I guess we will have to wait and watch this one.

Nokia bets big on text message based services in India

Nokia bets on an entire series of text message-based services for India. This is a approach difference from Nokia. The idea is to be customer-driven, not just technology-driven. While it’s not flashy, but it is smart.

 Nokia Life Tools enabled “We Meet” social networking will not require the user to have any data/GPRS plans for connecting to friends and networking around. The application specifically developed for Indian markets bypasses GPRS connection, which is still a prohibitively costly option in India and allows one to chat/IM through text messages. While IM is available to users through Telcos/ Chat portals, “We Meet” differentiates itself by software “threading” the messages in chronological order, making it easy to follow the conversation. The effect is something like an instant messaging conversation, but at the fraction of the cost and on devices with no data plans. We Meet is also designed to be location-aware. But instead of pricey GPS, which is typically found only in high-end phones, it tracks people’s location via towers. The system works because, in India, operators give cell towers geographic names. even low-end phones can detect the basic vicinity of specified contacts and display the information in the form of a word or phrase. When people move, the location updates. “It’s not a digital map, but it serves the same function.

 Nokia is also organizing a mobile texting based marketplace. Called “MoMart” for “mobile mart,” it consists of product listings delivered by text message. Interested buyers would subscribe to the service and specify the goods they want; the program would then push matches directly to their phones. Listings could be text-only or include an image embedded into the message. They could also be targeted to particular areas using cell-tower location technology, enabling buyers and sellers to meet in person. The programs run on Nokia’s Series 40 software platform, giving them a potential audience of hundreds of millions of phones.

Nokia has some experience it can reference. Last November, the company introduced a set of mobile programs called “Life Tools” that provided agricultural information and educational material to people in rural areas. Life Tools routes information to users via text message and was tested in India before being publicly released. However MoMart and WeMeet target urban users and encourage people to communicate with each other, not just consume content pushed to their phones.

Naturally, there’s an end game to all this work. Nokia hopes users will get hooked on doing more with their phones. Consumers who sign up for his apps will be more likely to adopt data plans in the future. When data plans become mass market, these users can easily transition.