Nokia's Lumia hits stores in India today
NEW DELHI: Nokia has unleashed its biggest-ever marketing campaign in India for the launch of its Windows-based smartphone Lumia on Friday, so as to keep itself relevant in a market being swarmed by Google Android phones such as Samsung Galaxy range.
Called The Amazing Everyday, the campaign includes impromptu dance performance by a foreign troupe in Mumbai; a luxury helicopter ride for consumers in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai; exclusive premiere for pre-bookers with tennis star Sania Mirza at Ambience Mall in Gurgaon late on Thursday; a mega musical event in Delhi on Friday, and toll exemption for more than 15,000 cars at DND Freeway connecting Delhi and Noida on Friday, among several others including aggressive advertisement across different media platforms, to connect with the young consumers across top cities.
"It's a gamechanger for us," says Nokia India Marketing Director Viral Oza. "We have redefined what we mean to the consumers." Analysts call it a desperate attempt to reclaim ground in the smartphone market. "Nokia is desperate to make Lumia work," says Saurabh Uboweja, director of brand consulting and design firm Brands of Desire.
"If Lumia flops, Nokia is likely to become conservative in marketing." Lumia is Nokia's first serious offering in smartphones comparable to Apple iPhone and top Android phones of Samsung, HTC and Motorola. And the Finnish firm, which still dominates the Indian handset market with a 30% share, is leaving no stone unturned in its bid to make Lumia a success.
Apart from an extensive experiential marketing, the handset major rolled out an internal campaign for its employees from December 12-16. So, it was WOW Monday for Nokia staff, who discovered a giant life-size Lumia in office and were asked to tap on it to get gifts such as chocolates, laptop stickers and Rubik cubes.
On Kinetic Tuesday, scooties were placed around office for employees to have fun rides; on Surprise Wednesday, employees went around office hunting for magic boxes; and they put on their dancing shoes on Foottapping Thursday.
On Friday, the office will remain closed and all employees will be in the market to attend the big launch events. Abhishek Chauhan, senior consultant (ICT practice) at Frost & Sullivan, says Nokia's first Windows-based smartphone will get a momentum from the extensive marketing campaign.
"But the momentum can be sustained only if the product works," he says. And, not many experts see Lumia as a game changer. "Lumia might pose serious competition, but it's definitely not a game changer," says Uboweja of Brands of Desire.
"There is nothing so exciting in the product that is way beyond or different from other smartphones." Experts are particularly critical of Nokia's decision to use only Symbian and Windows platforms for its phones, and leave the world's most popular Android OS out.
This is the first product under the Nokia-Microsoft partnership and the stakes are high for Nokia. "Nokia may get the knockout punch if Lumia fails to inspire consumer imagination," says Uboweja.
European consumers show little interest in Nokia's first smartphone using Microsoft's Windows Phone software, a survey by Exane BNP Paribas showed on Friday.
"With only 2.2 percent of surveyed buyers firmly intending to purchase the Lumia, Nokia's first flagship Windows Phone is ... far behind the current blockbusters, Apple's iPhone 4S and Samsung's Galaxy S II," analyst Alexander Peterc said in a note.
The brokerage slashed its view on sales of the Lumia to end-users to just 800,000 from its initial "ballpark estimate" of 2 million and said this compared with launch-quarter sales of between 3.5 million and 4 million for Nokia's previous flagship, the N8.
Exane BNP Paribas cut its price target on Nokia shares to 3.30 euros from 3.70 euros and stuck to its "underperform" rating on the stock, which was down 1.3 percent at 3.736 euros by 0939 GMT.
The brokerage surveyed 1,300 consumers in the five markets where the Lumia 800 had gone on sale in the week started Dec. 5, but narrowed the sample to 456 who had declared an intention to purchase a smartphone in the next month.
GSM Galaxy Nexus gets 4.0.2
update, 4.0.3 announced already
Google is on a roll with the Ice Cream
Sandwich updates for the Galaxy
Nexus. After releasing the 4.0.2 update for the LTE version of the Galaxy Nexus, the have now released
the same update to its GSM sibling as well. This update brings the same
changes as the one on the LTE version
and is 8.7MB in size. But that's not all. Google has also
announced the upcoming 4.0.3
update for the Galaxy Nexus, which
includes bug fixes, performance
updates and new APIs for the
developers that includes social stream API in Contacts provider, Calendar
provider enhancements, improved
access to camera features and
improvement to accessibility features. Google also wants 4.0.3 as the base
version of Ice Cream Sandwich to be
used by Android handset
manufacturers. The update is said to
be made available in the coming
weeks.
"I" WILL SEE YOU SOON
State-owned telecom services provider BSNL launched Choose Your Mobile Number Scheme across the country.
The scheme would provide a new customer with vast range of over one lakh numbers to choose from, BSNL Chairman and Managing Director R K Upadhyay said here.
The scheme provides access through broadband and also through SMS. Customers can log on to the BSNL website and click on "choose your mobile number" option, he said.
"Those who do not have broadband connection may opt for SMS option through which they will get ten numbers on mobile from which they can choose desired number," Upadhyay told media persons after formally launching the plan.
The scheme was first launched in Andhra Pradesh on November 1 and it received very good response. The sale of mobile connections under this scheme has crossed 1.2 lakh, he said.
"Enthused by the success of the scheme in Andhra Pradesh, BSNL has now decided to launch the scheme all over the country."
Replying to query Upadhyay said BSNL will set targets for the scheme after watching the initial response. "We expect that the scheme will attract more than 20 lakh new subscribers."
Siri on Android?
Google is reportedly planning to expand its existing voice-recognition assistant for Android that will allow users to perform actions in their natural language similar to how Apple iPhone's Siri functions.
Mobile shipments to India up 13.8% in July-September quarter
Mobile handset shipments to India increased by 13.8 per cent to 47 million units in July-September, 2011, propelled by sales of dual-SIM handsets, according to research firm IDC.
On a quarter-on-quarter year-on-year basis, mobile phone shipments were up 12 per cent.
"... The mobile phone shipments witnessed a spurt, as vendors built channel inventories ahead of a long festival season. Dual-SIM handset shipments were notable, with a sequential growth of 25.2 per cent over the previous quarter," International Data Corporation (IDC) Research Director for India Deepak Kumar said in a statement.
Looking ahead, the IDC said, "The calendar year 2011 is expected to close with mobile phone shipments of around 184.4 million units... Market to clock 301 million by 2015, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.03 per cent during the period of 2011-2015."
The smartphone segment is forecast to see a much higher CAGR of 63.4 per cent during the same period to achieve shipments of 77.5 million units by 2015, it added.
In the July-September quarter, the smartphone segment witnessed a growth of 51.5 per cent year-on-year and 21.4 per cent quarter-on-quarter to garner a 6.5 per cent share of the overall mobile phone market, IDC said.
Finnish cellphone company Nokia was the leader in both feature phone and smartphone categories, with a 31.8 per cent and 35.3 per cent market share, respectively, during the period under review.
Korean company Samsung stood second, with a 17.5 per cent of the feature phone segment and a 26 per cent share of the smartphone market.
Spice and MAXX were the top home-grown brands, witnessing a growth of 34.1 per cent 10.1 per cent, respectively, in total shipments during the July-September quarter vis-a-vis the previous quarter.
From an operating system perspective, Android phones overtook Symbian to emerge as the top platform in India for the first time, with a 42.4 per cent share of the smartphone market.
Shipments of Android smartphones grew by 90 per cent in July-September in comparison to the previous quarter.
Apple's iPhones, which use the iOS operating system, consolidated their market share further during the quarter, accounting for 3.09 per of overall smartphone shipments, compared to 2.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2011.