For Nokia, the past year was all about the letter “N.” Though the Finnish manufacturer released plenty of models, the family that was getting the most hype was the N-series selection of devices. Devices announced in 2006, like the N95 and the N75, finally began shipping worldwide, especially to Nokia’s flagship stores in the U.S., making them available to unlockers here in the States.
Still, even with impressive handsets that generate plenty of media buzz, Nokia has slipped in the U.S., and is now the third or fourth largest manufacturer of handsets from the American market. Compare this to the company’s standing worldwide as the top manufacturer of mobile handsets. So, when Nokia’s chief executive, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, told various news outlets that he planned on regaining market share in the U.S., it wasn’t much of a surprise, because there wasn’t much more share to lose. But, what can Nokia do to regain their standing? First, they need to look at past mistakes.
Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to all but stop making devices for two of the four largest U.S. carriers. Sure, consolidating their product line to GSM devices only, excluding CDMA, may have had benefits for manufacturing and design. But, cutting out nearly half the American market surely wasn’t a great idea. The company says they will again begin designing handsets that will work on CDMA networks, but will most likely outsource production of these handsets. In any case, we don’t expect to see handsets with the Nokia brand appear on Verizon Wireless and Sprint until the end of this year, at the earliest.
Even with the GSM carriers, though, Nokia seems to hold an also-ran status. AT&T does sell a couple of high-end Nokia devices, notably the Nokia N75, which we panned a few months back. The E62, a full-QWERTY phone from Nokia’s business-oriented E-series family, disappeared from AT&T’s lineup without a trace, though we’ve seen the device updated for the European market.
And this is the unfortunate pattern we’ve seen with Nokia phones this year. With the exception of the enchanting, yet boxy Nokia N95, Nokia will release some very exciting multimedia smartphones for the European market, and throw Americans a bone by “allowing” us to buy them here with the European radio bands in place. They aren’t remotely usable or enjoyable, not to their fullest extent, on U.S. networks, but real Nokia enthusiasts, no doubt a dwindling bunch, can still get their fix.
This is ridiculous, and one of the themes we’ll be looking at in the mobile marketplace. The U.S. marketplace is exploding, and the U.S. mobile customer is finally learning how to shop for and appreciate an advanced mobile phone. If Nokia wants to get back into the American market, the first step is to change the chips on some of their existing N-series and E-series phones and make them available to U.S. customers with full high-speed networking in tact. For our American readers, looking for high-speed multimedia phones from Nokia, we had plenty of phones to talk about in the past year, and almost none to recommend.
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