Nokia switching up strategy to boost US market share

by Chris Ziegler posted May 2nd 2008 at 1:34AM

Despite shockingly strong sales worldwide, Nokia has kept a fairly low profile in the US as of late -- not Sony Ericsson low, but still pretty stealth. Espoo wants to take a bigger bite out of the American pie, though, and as BusinessWeek notes, it pretty much has to play nice with the US megacarriers in order to do that. Historically, that has run counter to Nokia's corporate culture of rampant innovation with a general disregard for carriers' specific needs -- think Ovi, for example -- and that's where the winds of change start to blow. In the States, Nokia has now assigned a whopping 300 product development folks to AT&T and Verizon each, and it turns out that the 6555 is one fruit of that labor; in fact, AT&T specifically requested that the 6555's PTT button be moved to the top, and Nokia complied. That's a whole new level of cooperation that American carriers aren't used to when dealing with the Finnish giant that likes to throw its weight around, and if it keeps up, it sounds like we should start to see plenty more models available on contract in the not-too-distant future.

[Via PHONE Magazine and GadgeTell]

Filed under: Nokia

Tags: carrier, carriers, nokia, us

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

youngcalihottie @ May 2nd 2008 10:35PM

yay!
i

Neutral

Pdexter @ May 2nd 2008 4:19AM

Will it's not a first time when Nokia have said that it would take NA market seriously, but hopefully they get those S40 phones actually out here and others with 3g of course¨.

Neutral

tom @ May 2nd 2008 5:52AM

Well its not just the US. European carriers are starting to demand more now and don't get me started about the South Korean and Japanese markets.

Neutral

David @ May 2nd 2008 4:46PM

When are carriers going to realize that designing the phones and software and hardware is NOT their area of expertise?

Every Rogers phone I have gotten with Rogers software and branding on it has been a complete joke. Buttons that have a function no longer work because the new Rogers software ignores them. Buggy software that crashes. Phones that are restricted from doing things that the same phone without Rogers software can do. And UI's that are horrible...and NON-customizable because Ted likes the colour red.

Nokia designs great phones and is an expert in it...let them do the work they know how and carriers go back to doing what they know. (Screwing people out of gobs of cash through marketing)

Highest Ranked

olly @ May 2nd 2008 9:34AM

To be honest, I don't care as much about Nokia being involved with contract pricing phones -- sure, great, fine, whatever, I know it helps out -- but what I DO care about is them making models that are usable in the US unlocked (as in 3G) -- something that they've FINALLY started to do with the N95-3 and the N95-4.

Now if they can get me a good N or E series phone with T-Mo's 3G bands I'll be a happy camper!

-olly

Neutral

B.I.G. @ May 2nd 2008 9:43AM

Hey olly, nice to see ya. I totally agree with you. Bring on a black N82 with US 3G!!!

Neutral

Konceptz @ May 2nd 2008 10:27AM

There would be a picture explosion if at&t suddenly carried N82's.

After which If that N82 came in pink, then facebook would die in a swirl of semi-nude vanity shots featuring teen-college aged girls.

Neutral

Douglas A. @ May 2nd 2008 11:16AM

If Apple can push AT&T around and sell its iPhone with no branding on it through them, I don't understand why the largest cell phone company in the world can't do the same, and sell an N95-3 or N95-4 through AT&T. I guess I'm stuck buying unlocked phones...

Neutral

huh @ May 2nd 2008 11:19AM

The whole problem with Nokia is they have too many lines. I watched a video around the n95 and it was clear from the marketing handler that was there that marketing drives the company. They will never have a perfect device because they are too focused on market segmentation. Get rid of the good camera on the business phone, that's a multimedia phone feature! Get rid of the touch screen on the multimedia phone, that's a business phone feature! Etc. I'm not stating it very well, but that's the general idea. Sure, they move a lot of product, but it's mostly fashion phones. They could reduce their entire product lineup with 5 or so devices, lay off a ton of people and have the most faithful consumers imaginable if they'd just learn to focus.

Neutral