Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
Source: Jutarnji list
Once the most influential and best-selling mobile phone brand didn’t manage to adapt to the iPhone world, and after several years of stumbling around, then selling to Microsoft, and leaving Microsoft shortly after, it seemed that the only thing left to do was to lock the door and burry the once great Finnish brand. But it turned out there’s something to those ideas by which Donald Trump values his name to at least $3 billion: namely, the brand’s power is obviously a variable that is impossible to precisely quantify and is actually quite difficult to completely destroy. By the end of 2016, the Nokia’s resurrection began, and today, about a year and a half later, we have figures defying common sense: more than 70 million phones are sold, in 21 countries Nokia is among the top five best-selling smartphone brands (including the United Kingdom, Germany and Russia), on the market of so-called “feature” phones Nokia is the most respected brand, devices are sold in more than 90 countries, and activated in more than 200 …
But before we can tell you how this return from the dead came to be, it is probably necessary to note: this story relates only to Nokia phones. Namely, Nokia’s network technology division has existed and thrived throughout this time, working on the Internet of Things, and other technologies.
This part of the Finnish giant was never sold, while Nokia’s mobile phone division after the zenith in the 90’s and early 2000 saw nothing else but problems. The story is relatively intricate, but summarized in the shortest possible lines goes like this: in the year 2014, Nokia was on the verge of bankruptcy and sold its mobile business to Microsoft. Microsoft tried, and except for a few positive flashes, largely failed to establish its Windows Mobile operating system against the superior Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, so they decided to get rid of that business only a year later.
Then, HMD Global joined the story, established by mostly Nokia’s former managers and engineers. HMD, operating from the building opposite the headquarters of Nokia in Helsinki, purchased the rights to use the Nokia brand by 2024. They made two strategic partnerships that would prove to be crucial in the process of revitalization. The first partnership relates to the hardware part: they teamed up with Foxconn, a Taiwanese company that is today the largest electronics manufacturer in the world and has 1.3 million employees. Foxconn is a company that doesn’t have its own brands but has a number of factories in which it manufactures and assembles devices for others, like iPhone for Apple. It is estimated that more than 40 percent of global electronics are released from their factories. Logically, Foxconn has accumulated a lot of expertise over the years and it was even a little surprising that they never tried to conquer the market with a brand of their own. Anyway, they make Nokia today, and one of the biggest pros that reviewers and buyers attribute to these devices are that they are very well and skillfully built.
The second partnership refers to the software part. New Nokia became Google’s tier one partner. They are part of the Android One program, through which their smart phones get system upgrades and security patches among the first, and the operating system itself is almost stock vanilla Android, with no Nokia’s bloatware to slow down the phones. This is an important factor, because it is one of the biggest flaws in Android phones compared to the iPhone – getting system upgrades rather rarely. The cheapest Nokia smartphones are part of the Android Go Edition program, which is a customized, streamlined version of Android for phones with a maximum of 1GB of RAM. So today, Nokia advertises with the slogan pure, secure and up to date. The HMD has concluded another strategic partnership last summer, whose effects are yet to be seen. They partnered with the German high-end lens company Carl Zeiss AG, which will manufacture camera optics for Nokia phones.
All in all, HMD has so far released 14 smartphones with Nokia brand, and 10 feature phones. They cover a huge price range – from less than €100 to around €700 for their top model Nokia 8 Sirocco. The best-selling model so far is Nokia 3, whose new version, recently unveiled in Moscow, sells for 139 euros. Some devices with flagship phone specs are announced for the fall, but it’s reasonable to believe that Nokia is currently expecting only a halo effect from them for their cheaper devices, not some special sales or earnings. This was confirmed indirectly by Nokia’s Chief Product Officer Juho Sarvikas at the recent launch of three new Nokia smartphones in Moscow.
“42 percent of smartphones in the world are sold in the price range from $100 to $250. They are our bread and butter,” he said.
In addition, they still quite enough old Nokia legends in stock that can be reanimated and repacked for the contemporary audience. It might be all the same for today’s kids, but there are plenty of 30 and 40-something year olds who in their teenage years used those phones as their first devices. Nostalgia can be very intoxicating, and Nokia is the prime example of its power.