Nokia/S60 fans asking: why no US success?
I was asked to comment these rants by two well-known bloggers and self-confessed Nokia/S60 fans, who are starting to get desperate about the lack of availability of Nokia/S60 devices in the USA:
- Symbian Guru: Nokia Might As Well Pull Out Of The US Market
- Darla Mack: Are US Consumers Not Smart Enough For A Smartphone?
Sigh… What can I say? Frankly, I think the situation sucks. Nokia wants to sell devices in the US, and people in the US want to buy our devices - but the seller and the buyer don’t meet. But why? Honestly, I don’t understand why. Of course, I have heard all kinds of reasons, but still, my mind refuses to understand it.
Somebody wiser than me: please comment. Ricky and Darla are among our best customers in the USA, and I think they would deserve a proper answer.
Ps. both Ricky and Darla made an appeal to our CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. Most probably, OPK doesn’t have time to engage in blog conversations, but I’d like to see if somebody in higher ranks could comment.
Tommi, some of the comments made by the “anonymous” person is somewhat shedding light to what I thought all along… its not the manufacturer, but the provider that calls the shots.
In my opinion, the providers are making the piss-poor decisions on what handsets we can and can’t have.
Thanks for reading, Tommi.
I don’t buy the provider excuse, though. Nokia has been making handsets for Cingular and T-mobile for YEARS. I highly doubt that all of a sudden the carriers changed their requirements and apparently told every other manufacturer but Nokia.
I realize my post was long and harsh, but Tommi, I was seriously embarassed at CES. Sure the N93i and N76 are great devices, and I’m sure you have and will sell them in the US. But the N93i doesn’t even have GSM 850, which is widely used over here, and after the big spill about internet this and that, the N76 has EUROPEAN 3G.
Like I told Darla yesterday, that’s like me going to Brazil and attending one of their big parties, and then in Portuguese, telling them all about the cool new Chevrolets we’re launching in the States. It’s almost borderline rude.
I want desperately for Nokia to dominate the US market again cause I love Nokia phones, and I hate that people don’t buy them because you have to hit up ebay to get it.
Tommi: It is a sad state of affairs to be sure. When I brought my new N93 into the local T-Mobile store in Albuquerque, NM USA, I was practically swarmed on by the kids working there. All of them wanted to see the N93 and what it was capable of. None of them had ever seen one “in the flesh”, only on the web.
I show what the device is capable of doing wherever I go and everyone agrees it is an amazing machine but no one has ever seen one outside of the mobile tech crowd I sometimes hang out with. A sad state of affairs.
Also, Tommi, here’s what gets me: I’ve heard the excuse from Nokia in their webcasts that the US has different technologies and whatnot, but yet just about every other manufacturer has at least a couple of US 3G phones.
I would suppose that Nokia’s lack of “interest” in the US 3G market has ALOT to do with the whole Qualcomm battle, and, while that’s a somewhat valid holdup, Nokia needs to realize they’re missing the boat in the US.
People are signing 2-year contracts for these 3G phones. That means you’re not likely going to sell them another phone for at least 21 months. But also, with the way the cellphone industry goes, in 2 years, I’d guess that also 3G might be like EDGE. Still valid, but certainly not hot.
Hi Tommi,
if you check my-symbian’s forums and look for the discussion on the reviewed E90, you’ll see that me and some other people commented about this. Truthfully, I don’t want Nokia to come out with a US phone and with European phone. I wan to have a WORLD phone. I had to abandon my E61 (the greates phone ever build except one thing) because it does not have US 3G. I had to switch to HTC TyTN because of its tri-band 3G and quad-band GSM/GPRS.
The ideal think would be if Nokia start making expensive phones like E90 a trully global phone. All bands for all GSM and UMTS technologies.
IMHO
Alex
It is not enough to point to the carriers and consumers. As a former Nokia U.S. employee, now in a U.S. company, the contrast is clear. The spirit of winning and the guerrilla marketing skills are missing with Nokia U.S. Just watch the difference with iPhone and Nokia marketing here..
Nuff said.
“The ideal think would be if Nokia start making expensive phones like E90 a trully global phone. All bands for all GSM and UMTS technologies.”
Do you have any idea how many bands there are for 3G at a moment? There are 10 bands for 3G and 6 for GSM. Do you have any idea how complex that kind of radio would be that would support all 16 bands.
“Do you have any idea how many bands there are for 3G at a moment? There are 10 bands for 3G and 6 for GSM. Do you have any idea how complex that kind of radio would be that would support all 16 bands.”
OK, I was not talking about all 16 bands. I was talking about all the widely used bands in Europe and North/South America. That would make a total of 7 bands. Not that hard to do considering there are phones like that already available, just not by Nokia and not with Symbian.
Please see my blog about Smartphone OS market share where I also mention your findings.
Tote
Here are a couple of answers to what is happening with Nokia on the Market in Canada and the U.S.:
http://www.phoneboy.com/node/1351
Hope this asnwers some of not all of your questions…
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Looking at the “alternate” list in there, Nokia is actually doing all of those things recently.
Of course it would help to support US bands etc. in more products.
Based on statements made by execs, sounds like Nokia is planning to escalate it’s US committment. It’d be nice to see more Nokia’s with keyboards, that are well supported by carriers, and can download cool java apps off the carriers deck.
Hi Tommi,
I’m originally from Finland and have been living in Florida close to 30 years. When I lived in Tampa area in the late 80’s a friend of mine worked for Nokia there and supplied us with all the newest phones Nokia came up with and we did a great deal of showing them off. Fast forward to present, I just came back from Miami, I live in West Palm Beach, where I tried to inquire about few of your phones mainly E65, E90, and N95-3 all which I have and use daily, the gentleman showing me phones did not know that E65 existed, had not seen E90 and had heard nothing but rumors about N95, in the end I had to show him all those phones just to make him believe they actually existed, while he was telling me that N73 was the latest and greatest Nokia phone on the market in the USA and I must have bought mine overseas.
If you need a PR person in SE Florida, please don’t hesitate to contact me, I think I could do a lot more than the current people you have down here.
Regards
Olli Rita
I’m been giving serious thought, and I’ve seen how I’m not the only one! It seems that there is no solution, except that there’s so many people waiting for one!
Word of mouth is the only way at this time, but it’s such a slow, long, uphill trek.
It’s not our job to do this for Nokia, and even though little to no marketing is necessary in other places, this is a different market.
I liked the statement “…the spirit of winning and the guerrilla marketing skills are missing with Nokia U.S.”
Nokia needs to change their game…