Barcelona
Nokia is making a comeback with a bang after launching two smartphones — Nokia 3 and 5 — and a revamped version of the classic feature (basic) phone — 3310.
“We are starting the next chapter for Nokia. Users will find the true Nokia brand attitudes such as reliability, simplicity, ease of use, human touch and quality in our devices,” Arto Nummela, CEO of HMD Global, told Gulf News after the launch. HMD Global owns the rights to sell Nokia branded smart phones and tablets, and Nummela is an ex-Nokia staff member.
“We have such a unique brand and world-over people know and trust Nokia. Finally, we have Android in Nokia. The phones will run pure Android version similar to Google Pixel phones. We and Google will jointly enhance the Nokia brand and Goggle trusts our product people to put the right kind of inputs into the phone, including Google Assistant,” he said.
When asked why Nokia is targeting the under €250 range (DhDh972), he said that 50 per cent of the people who buy devices globally pay between €100 and €300, making it the biggest volume segment.
“We want to start with that price point and find a new generation of Nokia fans. We want to be one of the top Android players in coming years,” he said.
Nokia, also showcased a Nokia watch with health features which will come in the second quarter of this year.
“We were getting a lot of demand from the fans to reissue Nokia 3310. So, we decided to have some fun and create it more vibrant,” he said.
The 5.2-inch Nokia 5 will have a 1.4Ghz octa-core processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. microSD card supports up to 256GB of additional storage capacity. It houses 13MP rear and 8MP front cameras. It is priced at €189.
The 5-inch Nokia 3 will have 1.4GHz processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. microSD card supports up to 256GB of additional storage capacity. It houses 8MP front and rear cameras. It is priced at €139.
The 2.4-inch Nokia 3310 has 2MP rear camera with 22 hours of talk time and with vibrant colours. It is priced at €49.
“Our focus is not just on 5G, despite most of the revenues coming from the telecom sector, but we also want to increasingly get closer to consumers, create the new user-experience and human forms of technology,” said Rajeev Suri, CEO of Nokia.
“We are celebrating a new era for Nokia and HMD. We would not licence the Nokia brand to anybody and I found HMD to be the right partner to drive this business forward. I love what they have done and excited about what they have done,” he said.
Nokia also announced that the Snake game will be snaking its way back into people’s hearts with a new version available to play on Messenger, part of Facebook’s Instant Games cross-platform experience.
Ian Fogg, Head of Mobile Analysis at IHS Markit, said that HMD is not old Nokia. It is a start-up with a start-up’s ambition. But, it has an existing brand to provide a kick start.
“HMD must appeal to those consumers who recall the Nokia brand from when Nokia was the leading handset and smartphone manufacturer in the early 2000s while establishing Nokia as a modern and up to date brand again known for innovation,” he said.
Fogg said that HMD is not aiming to achieve similar volumes to Nokia in its prime. It does not need to be a major success and be profitable because of its different business model and organisational structure to old Nokia.
HMD is working in conjunction with Foxconn to bring innovative new Nokia handsets to the market.
At its peak in 2008, The Nokia Corporation, Inc was the world’s top phone company. It shipped 468 million handsets, of which 60 million were smartphones. It had a mobile market share of 41 per cent. No handset player has anything like that dominance of the market today: current leader Samsung just had a 19 per cent share in 2016.
“We expect HMD to offer more premium handsets, especially centred around imaging capability, once HMD has had a little more time for its research and development teams to operate. Once complete, the goal is for the portfolio for each product to be indistinguishable from a true Nokia-made handset and fully deliver on the brand promise,” he said.
