Nokia’s Presence in USA - February 11, 2009
Every time someone mentions “Nokia” and “USA” in the same sentence, you can’t help but wonder why the Finnish mobile phone firm is the undisputed No.1 manufacturer in virtually every market, save the US one. Is it because Americans don’t have a need for smart phones? Doesn’t seem so, with the iPhone selling like hotcakes over on that side of the Atlantic.
The PhoneBoy Blog has an article about the development and progress of Nokia within the US market. The author happens to be working for Nokia, so he’s able to shed some light from within the company on the barriers the phone firm faces in the US, as well as outlying the options available for Nokia.
Generally it seems as though the problem is mostly due to the US Carriers:On T-Mobile.com, for instance, of the ~30 phones listed for sale, three of them are ours and they are generally lower-end phones. On Sprint.com, of the ~30 phones listed for sale, NONE of them are Nokia phones. On VerizonWireless.com, of the 35 phones, two are Nokia. On Cingular.com, of the ~45 phones, three are Nokia.It doesn’t seem likely the average consumer would walk in to Nokia Flagship stores (I’m sure there aren’t that many around), purchase an unsubsidised Nokia top-of-the-range handset, then getting a phone plan from the carriers.
And then there’s the problem of carrier customisations if the carrier was to sell it via their company stores. The locking, the carrier approved firmware (which incidentally cripples the main features of the phone), which then leads to few numbers of the phone sold, which at the end of the day means no firmware updates.
Hopefully a proper European carrier can go over and sort out the mess.
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