After receiving the heavy national wealth from Nokia, HMDCEOArtoNummela has since shouldered the heavy responsibility of reviving Nokia's consumer brands. His goal is not only to let thousands of Finns pick up their smartphones with the word Nokia in their hands again, but also to quickly push the brand to the international market.
The former king wants to return, but today, when smartphones are saturated, the market is far from the Nokia era. Is there any chance for the reborn Nokia?
Functional machines are immortal.
Nummela didn't start from scratch. In May this year, Microsoft announced the sale of Nokia's feature phone business, which was taken over by Foxconn subsidiaries FIH and HMD. Although the functional machine market is shrinking and the sales volume is declining year by year, as long as this part of the market still exists, it will bring revenue to the company. Nummela told the First Financial Reporter: "The function machine market is still a huge business for startups like us, which can bring us experience and short-term cash flow."
At present, about one-tenth of the functional machines in the world are also printed with Nokia's name. However, in recent years, with Alcatel-Lucent selling its mobile phone business to TCL, Nokia gradually sold it to some small participants in the function machine market. In fiscal year 20 15, Nokia's function machine shipments dropped by 40%. Nummela's task is to reverse the decline of functional machines on the one hand, and establish the market position of smart phones as soon as possible on the other.
HMDCEOArtoNummela
FlorianSeiche, president of HMD, also said that the function machine is of great significance to HMD. He said: "HMD's share in the functional machine field in every market in the world is either the first or the second, and its share in some markets is as high as 94%. This gives us a good starting point. "
Nokia brand now mainly exists in developing countries such as Asia and Africa. The main markets of entry-level functional machines are India, Eastern Europe and Africa. Previously, Microsoft had little investment in these markets. Usually, the price of smart phone can be about 30 times higher than that of function machine, and the cheapest function machine is only 20 dollars.
"Many of us think that the function machine is long dead, but it is far from it. There are still many people using function machines. " BenWood, chief analyst of CCSInsight, told China Business News: "For a new mobile phone manufacturer like HMD, having a good brand will undoubtedly help them find a shortcut to growth."
In fact, for Android mobile phone manufacturers, the threshold for entering this market is very low, but it is difficult for companies with weak brand effects to survive. "HMD has Nokia's brand and management experience, which will be the key to their scale." Wood told this newspaper.
Nummela told China Business News that the new Nokia smartphone will be launched in the first half of next year. It is believed that the possible time is the World Mobile Communications Congress to be held in Barcelona next February. The new phone will use Google's Android system. NokiaX was Nokia's first Android phone before it was acquired by Microsoft in 20 14, and it was also launched in Barcelona.
Nummela's goal is to become a competitor in the smartphone market. He believes that no matter which brand of mobile phone people use now, loyalty is questioned. "Do we love our mobile phone brand and how loyal are we?" He raised such a question. It is also based on this that he believes that the Android mobile phone market is presenting huge opportunities.
Previously, HMD did a market survey to analyze what kind of people bought NokiaX and what mobile phones they used before. Through research, they found that many people who buy NokiaX use Samsung's high-end machines or Apple. This result surprised Nummela and his team. "Because if you are using Samsung or Apple, there is actually no reason to change other brands. But those people did it anyway. " Nummela said that he also saw opportunities in it. He promised to bring these people unimaginable mobile phones.
Nummela 1994 joined Nokia and is an old employee of Nokia. Before the establishment of HMD, his official position was vice president of Asia, Africa and the Middle East of Microsoft Mobile Equipment Sales Group, and he lived in the United Arab Emirates for a long time until now. Almost all HMD executives are from Nokia. It can be said that only Nokia Mobile has changed its name.
But interestingly, HMD is not funded by Nokia. In fact, HMD is held by a private equity fund called SmartConnect, whose owner Jean-FrancoisBaril was a senior executive in charge of managing the system supply chain in Nokia. Other middle managers of HMD also hold shares in the company. However, apart from charging brand patent fees, Nokia does not directly invest in HMD.
Significance of regression
Despite the ten-year authorization of Nokia's mobile phone and tablet brands, HMD doesn't want to use Nokia's legacy to hold all the resources in his hand. Nummela also knows that great changes have taken place in the whole mobile phone market since 1996, when Nokia launched its first mobile phone. "We see opportunities, but we also need to weigh the weight. We don't want to monopolize all resources, so we choose to cooperate with the best partners, which can help us move forward faster. " Nummela said.
Therefore, HMD chose to cooperate with Foxconn, the world's largest mobile phone OEM, to produce mobile phones and cooperate with Google to develop the operating system of smart phones. In addition, the company also has mobile phone service providers and sales channels to help Nokia brand accelerate the upgrade from function machine to smart phone in India, Indonesia and Russia.
But the challenges that HMD will face are also obvious. In recent years, a large number of smartphone manufacturers, including Huawei, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi and so on. Appeared in China market, but they didn't exist ten years ago. How competitive is Nokia after its return? This is the biggest question mark.
Lujun Kuan, chief research analyst of Gartner, told CBN: "Nokia's brand has a high affinity among consumers, but after returning to the market for many years, it will find that the market is not the original market, and it will face great challenges in channel change and product differentiation, especially in China. Today, the strength of China's smartphone manufacturers can no longer be compared with the Nokia era. "
According to the HMD product strategy revealed by analysts, the Nokia smartphone to be launched next year will be fully laid out. Judging from the product positioning of Nokia mobile phones in the past, it is also biased towards the mass market. Lu Junkuan said that the price-performance ratio of Nokia mobile phones has not been very high, so it is difficult to return them. Moreover, after many years of suspension, many offline sales channels no longer exist, and it will be difficult to rebuild. If you go online, it is difficult to have an advantage in price, so the return is of little significance.
However, he pointed out that these users who upgrade from function machines to smart phones may bring a certain amount to Nokia. According to his prediction, there are about 400 million functional machines on the market at present. If Nokia can keep more than half of the market, it will be 200 million. "Functional machines can survive for at least two to three years in the future. This is an opportunity for Nokia to establish a group of users from the function machine. " Lu Junkuan said, "Another part of the visible market is the so-called' Nuofen' plus Nokia's numerous user groups in Europe."
But don't underestimate the power of this group of "Nuofen". If the success or failure of Nokia mobile phone is based on the trust and loyalty of users, then "Nuofen" will play a key marketing role. Nokia CEO Suri once said: "Although Nokia mainly sells equipment to enterprises today, most people still think it is a consumer goods manufacturer. Therefore, Nokia should boldly try the field of consumer goods. " This also means that although Nokia itself does not produce mobile phones, it will still give the greatest support.
RajeevSuri told the First Financial Reporter at the Slush Entrepreneurship Conference held in Helsinki last week: "Nokia is very happy to see so many dynamic start-ups, and Nokia will also increase its investment in start-ups. This is what we are doing. " He also said that he is not worried that Nokia will have no chance today when smartphones are saturated. "Nokia needs to make people feel' Nokia' and make people feel that it is known as' Nokia'."
Regarding Nokia's product technology research and development and sales, he believes: "The field of digital health is a direction worthy of special attention." This may mean that the health function is the bright spot that distinguishes Nokia smartphones from other mobile phones in the market in the future. "If you only produce mobile phones, you can't meet the market demand." As early as February this year, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, RajeevSuri said that the Internet of Things is the key to the development of future technology enterprises.
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