Dear Santa: What I'd Like for Christmas is for the Essence of Nokia to Return in 2017

Lets write a letter to Santa. Santa Claus lives in Finland (not on the North Pole but that is a common misconception, Finland is, after all, the Northernmost country in the world when countries are compared by the centers of their geography). Santa lives in a mountain called Korvatunturi (The Ear Mountain) which is in Lapland. Finnair is the official airline of Santa and Rovaniemi is the official airport for Santa. As Nokia is a Finnish company (from far far South, born in the town of Nokia from which the company took its name. Nokia the town is located outside of Tampere, inland in SouthWestern Finland; originally Nokia was a paper mill company and also a rubber goods manufacturer before it made telecoms equipment like mobile phones. Thats how I knew Nokia as a kid in Helsinki my rubber boots were Nokia brand and in our Saab car, we had Nokia brand tyres). I know there are always skeptics around this time of year, who make silly claims that Santa is not real, here is the proof. Rovaniemi is the official airport of Santa Claus! What more could you ask for?




So its appropriate to ask a Finnish miracle-maker like Santa Claus to help out a quintessentially Finnish consumer brand, Nokia as in mobile phone handsets. And for 2017 we are about to see the return of the brand that less than a decade ago was the most used consumer brand on the planet. More people used Nokia branded mobile phones than wore Levi's blue jeans, drove Toyota cars, told time on Timex wrist watches, watched a Sony TV, worked on a Windows PC, or drank Coca Cola or ate a Big Mac. Nokia was by the end of the last decade, literally, the most widely-spread consumer brand on the planet (and one of the most valuable brands too, more valuable than Mercedes Benz).

CONNECTING PEOPLE

Regular readers of this blog know how Nokia died. Yes, Nokia the company did not die, they survived their crisis, they sold their handset business to Microsoft and fired their idiot CEO and kept selling other telecoms networking equipment and are a giant global company, a profitable one, today. They compete with Ericsson, they recently purchased the Alcatel-Lucent telecoms business, thats how rich and powerful they are. Nokia had previously purchased/merged with several of its past telecoms infrastructure-maker rivals like Siemens and Motorola. So I am of course talking about the consumer brand, what most 'normal people' associate with the brand Nokia. Its handsets, its mobile phones, its cameraphones, its featurephones, its smartphones. From the Communciator to the N-Series, E-Series, the X-Series; to the Lumia and Asha; to magnificent masterpieces of technology marvels like the Pureview cameraphones. The brand whose slogan was 'Connecting People' and who literally achieved that. When Nokia introduced its first mobile phone, the whole world had less than 800 million telephones (almost all fixed landline phones at that time, and most of the rest were Motorola handsets). By the time Nokia reached its peak, there were more than 1.4 Billion human beings who walked around with a Nokia in their pockets.

However, consider HOW Nokia did it. Here is 'the Nokia Way' part of that growth. Consider first Apple? Apple's iPhones currently are used by 525 million people. Apple did not bring pocket computing to those 525 million people. At least 500 million of them had a computer before, most had a smartphone before they bought their first iPhone, and almost all of the rest had a more basic mobile phone before they bought their first iPhone. Apple does not bring technology to people, it makes existing technology BETTER. That is the Apple way. They take bad broken concepts like the DOS-era Personal Computer, and redesign it magnificently and give us the Macintosh, a computer run with a mouse and icons and beautiful graphics, and today every Windows PC owes its history to the Mac. The same with music and the iPod, the input of modern phones as touch-screen phones (the original iPhone of 2007 was not a smartphone and smartphones had existed for 10 years, Apple did not invent the smartphone nor even re-invent the smartphone; even app stores existed for years before Apple launched its App Store in 2008) and what Apple did to tablet computers with the iPad. Apple does not invent new tech, it adapts existing tech but does it so totally and perfectly and beautifully, it recreates whole industry sectors and of course Apple does this at enormous profits selling to rich people of the world. So how did Nokia do it, then?

Out of the 1.4 Billion humans who had a Nokia branded mobile phone in their pockets at the start of year 2011, 80% of those lived not in the rich world, 80% of those were living in.. the Emerging World. Living in India, China, Russia, Brazil, Nigeria, Indonesia, Egypt, Vietnam, Turkey etc. Of those 80% who owned a Nokia phone in 2012, most did not own a premium-priced Nokia N-Series or E-Series smartphone, most owned basic phones or mid-priced 'featurephones' but still proudly carried their most-prized possession. For most who owned a Nokia, for MOST, the Nokia brand was not just their first MOBILE phone brand, for most, their first Nokia phone was indeed their first-ever phone. Their home had NEVER had a wired telephone before they got connected via the Nokia brand. If you want to think about the corporate marketing slogan of 'Connecting People', no company has connected more people (ie people who never previously had any telecoms, digital, internet or banking/payments connection of any type before - no fixed landline, no internet connection, no credit card or bank account even) - that was Nokia.  If we take a modest number, and say only 80% of those in the Emerging World who at the end of year 2010 had a Nokia branded phone in their pockets, out of those if only 8 in 10 were of this class, that before their first Nokia phone, they never had a telephone, not as a fixed landline in their home, nor personally as a mobile phone, before their first Nokia sometime in that previous decade, then that number is a massive 912 million people.

EVERY STORY NEEDS AN iVILLAIN

Understand this point. When Nokia launched its first mobile phone, the world only had 800 million total telephones. It was not just that Nokia sold expensive premium mobile phones to those rich people of the Western Industrialized rich countries, who could afford a Motorola or Siemens or Ericsson or Panasonic or Nokia (or Palm or Blackberry or HTC or Apple smartphone) - yes, Nokia sold to hundreds and hundreds of millions of those types of customers, of course. They bought the premium Nokia phones. BUT IN ADDITION TO THEM, Nokia went out to literally 'Connecting People'. They connected MORE people who never were electronically reachable before, and connected more people to the telecoms and digital networks than had been the total connected human population before Nokia started. And those new connected people in India, China, Nigeria, Brazil, Egypt, Russia, Indonesia etc - they all found their first digital telecoms connections through a Nokia branded magical device in their pockets. Those phones by Nokia were durable, they had batteries that lasted forever, they had features the consumers greatly appreciated, they were compatible with the standards, they had connectivity that worked with everything. They were so indestructible, a dog ate one. The family took the dog to the doctor who x-rayed the dog and saw the phone inside the dog. The dog eventually pooped the Nokia phone out - and yes, it still worked (may have smelled a bit). One Nokia phone stopped a bullet and saved its owner. There was a video of someone using a Nokia phone as a hammer to hit in a nail into a wall - hitting with its SCREEN (don't try that on an iPhone).

Compare this to Apple. Apple wants to lock us into the iPrison. They want to only sell to rich people, very expensive iToys that lock their customers to proprietary iStandards of a very snobbish iParadise where Apple control everything. An iWeb woven by the possessive iSpider. The Apple pure way and nothing ever is compatible with all other standards, the Apple way always has its own weird connectors and they are always in a rush to abandon anything that would give compatiblity to the rest of the world from USB ports to the standard earphone jacks now that used to be part of the iPhone. All of this obssession with disconnectivity, is so Apple can sell you more at their proprietary standards. Yes, Apple is the second-bestselling mobile phone brand globally today behind only Samsung. But they are not anywhere near attempting to connect the world (at least Samsung is also doing that). Apple is strictly just milking the iSheep for all the profits they can - witness the silly idea of the Apple Watch. Selling an iDecoration for the wrist at obscene prices.

Lets turn to Nokia. Its not just they were Connecting People. What about our memories? The single most important memories for all families are their photographs. Global, planetary phenomenon. If your house is on fire and you've got your kids and dog out safely, the immediate next thought is - the photographs! For most people who own a camera today, for most that is a cameraphone, not a stand-alone digital camera. For most who own a cameraphone, their first-ever cameraphone was a Nokia. Think about that for a moment. Before the cameraphone, only rich people could afford cameras. But Nokia put cameras onto not just its expensive smartphones, Nokia put cameras onto its basic phones. For most people on the planet who have a camera today, their first owned camera brand was Nokia (as part of the phone they had). Whether they today are still a Nokia loyal user or have moved onto Samsung or Huawei or Apple or whatever, their first camera was a Nokia. Can you imagine the impact that 'phone' made on the life of that village in Africa, when the first Nokia cameraphones arrived and then the local wedding and birthdays and graduations started to be documented by cameras?

The Nokia Tune is the most recognized song on the planet. In terms of our Christmas theme, yes, the Gran Vals by Torrega (ie the Nokia Tune) is more recognized on the planet than the song White Christmas. Its more known than any song by Elvis or the Beatles or Michael Jackson or Madonna. It is known more than 'Happy Birthday'. It is the only 'Western' song widely recognized even in countries that severely restricted access of any 'Western corrupting' culture such as North Korea and Cuba. The game Snake that has been standard on Nokia phones for nearly two decades now, is the most-played videogame on the planet. Yes more have played Snake than Solitaire on a PC haha. And far more have played Snake than who have played Angry Birds, Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, Pokemon Go or Super Mario Brothers.

The Nokia that once was, that was a gentle giant. They did invent a lot of magical technology for us, such as the world's first smartphone (the Communicator, literally a decade before the iPhone). But in many ways, like Apple iPhone of today, the mythology then takes over. Many of the great aspects of the Nokia phones of the past were attributed as Nokia inventions while they were actually not. So take cameraphones. Nokia had the highest annual sales of cameras recorded in history of nearly 350 million cameraphones sold per year (Samsung has come close but not yet passed that level annually when their smartphones and dumbphones are added together). Many think Nokia invented the cameraphone. It didn't. Sharp of Japan invented the cameraphone in 2001. Same for music. Nokia was yes the first phone maker to put a 'song' as its ringing tone to its phones; and then again, the first phone maker to let YOU the consumer install your OWN songs (as very simple ringing tones) onto your phones to further personalize it (I created my first ringtone in October of 1998 haha, when did you first LEARN of the ability to install a ringing tone to your phone...) but 'musicphones' like the original iPhone of 2007 or the SonyWalkman phones that back then were killing the iPod business? They were not invented by Nokia. Musicphones - that had MP3 songs downloaded onto them and had MP3 players on them - they were invented in South Korea. Sony Music's artist Ricky Martin was the first to release MP3 songs to download onto the first musicphones in South Korea (I got to meet the executive who came up with that idea some years later, it was funny that I knew 'his story' haha). So while for most consumers who had pop music stored on their phones in year 2012, that was more often a Nokia phone than any other music player - Nokia did not invent musicphones.

Nokia was a kind of 'bellweather' company for most tech. Others would launch it first, experimentally. When Nokia decided to install that technology then it was time to do it mainstream. Like Nokia did with 3G or with 'selfie' cameras (early Nokia cameraphones only had the 'outward-facing' camera, not the inward-facing videophoning camera we now call the selfie camera). So once Nokia decided to put 3G into its phones in large scale, then the whole industry knew, hey, this will be everywhere we have to do this too. And MP3 players, cameras, Bluetooth, etc. Today Apple's iPhone seems to be that way a lot. No matter what Samsung does, it doesn't seem to matter until Apple does it. Is waterproofing really necessary? When Samsung did it, nobody cared, but when Apple does it, wow this is awesome. When Samsung did its Note sized phablets, nah, you don't need a big screen but when suddenly Apple does the iPhone 6 Plus, wow, the big screen is awesome, etc. We seem to have the iPhone today acting for the industry in that 'what is ripe' bellweather, what Nokia used to be for the industry before.

Unfortunately here is where the old Nokia philosophies of Espoo and the iTax people thinking of Cupertino are at odds quite dramatically. Whatever Apple tends to do, is strip the industry out of its commonality, its functionality, and give only iProprietary and expensive cumbersome solutions. Apple is notorious for this. They didn't bother to give MMS functionality to their first iPhone. And industry telecoms standard? Your airline sends you a boarding pass, oh, sorry, is that an iPhone you use? We can't send it. Sorry. No, of course this is silly. Apple was forced to put the MMS standard into all iPhones in less than a year. But that is Apple's way of thinking. Look at the silly one-button mouse on the Mac. How many decades have Mac users begged for two buttons on the Mac like the incredible functionality that the second mouse gives those who use the far-more-widely-used Windows PCs? But no. Its the Apple way, we know better and style is always more important than functionality at Apple and less is always better. Always take control away from the end user, and from the ecosystem too. Look at Apple's repeated feuds with the telco industry trying to take away the SIM card, to create the virtual SIM card.

THE NOKIA WAY

Now compare to Nokia. Look at WiFi. Nokia did not invent the WiFi phone (Invented in Japan by NTT DoCoMo). But Nokia was the first-non-Japanese phone maker to put WiFi onto its smartphones. And what did American carriers demand? They demanded that Nokia cripple its smartphones and take WiFi away (so carriers can screw their customers by forcing them to use the more expensive cellular data networks which also often in the USA are notoriously unreliable). Nokia said no. And Nokia insisted, this is an international telecoms standard. It is also the standard specs of the same handset model we sell around the world, we will not CRIPPLE the phone for the US market and take out functionality. That is against the user experience. And yes, obviously WiFi won. But you know what? Nokia was also winning that war. The rest of the world went along with Nokia and increasingly all major smartphone makers also put WiFi onto their phones but the US carriers blocked Nokia premium phones from their markets for years. But that dam was broken in late 2010 and for February 2011, Nokia had already announced its return to the US market with its first top-end smartphone provided with handset subsidy by one of the major carriers - only to have this deal suddenly cancelled by Nokia (because the lunatic CEO had suddenly decided to destroy his company, as we later found out). But if you ever used WiFi on your phone today, in any hotspot in the world, don't thank Apple. Don't thank Samsung. It was a war that was fought - bitterly paid for, with considerable market share penalties, but ultimately won - by Nokia. A war won for us, by Nokia. Nokia did not invent the WiFi phone but they won that war for us. Meanwhile Apple? They cripple the functionality on their phones all the time. Bluetooth was crippled, FM radio was muted and off, the video functionality of early Apple cameras was turned off, etc. They are control freaks who want to limit you and limit THE INDUSTRY.

Nokia wanted the industry to thrive. So they put memory card functionality onto their phones! Not expensive internal memory that you have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for the phone models with enough memory. No, put in a memory slot and now the consumer can buy the amount of storage you want - AND you can buy more later (when memory prices are lower) AND you can upgrade that ability later, and you have a convenient way to exchange information with friends ('Connecting People') and most of all - when you replace your phone, you can take your memory card and slot it into the next phone and instantly have all your precious memories on that phone. Has anyone EVER begged Apple to put a microSD slot onto the iPhone? Did essentially all rival phone makers offer microSD by the time Apple came along? And has Apple bothered? No. Of course not because of iTyranny. And here we see the CORROSIVE side of how Apple does it. After Apple doesn't offer microSD, now other makers are removing microSD support as well. Samsung tried this with the Galaxy and got burned and brought the microSD back, but that is what Apple causes. When Apple leads, others follow and in many ways (removable batteries for example) once Apple sets the stage - WE the CONSUMERS suffer when OTHER makers follow Apple's lead. With Nokia it was the opposite way! We gained when Nokia led the way even if we ended up buying another phone by some other brand at a later date.

But did you see HMD's first announced ultra-cheap cameraphone just introduced last week? Not the first proper Android smartphone by the returning Nokia brand. It takes more time to design the top-end phones, but its faster to do the cheap phones. HMD announced its first pair of ultra-cheap Nokia basic phones. The price of unsubsidised (aka SIM-free aka no contract) phones is an amazing 26 US dollars only - no smartphone, no web browser, no downloadable apps, no Facebook. BUT it is a color screen CAMERAphone at that price, with a Nokia brand! The camera even has LED flash. And at this bottom-end price phone, the new Nokia has yes.. a microSD slot. Thank you Nokia, thank you HMD, you are showing us that you are true to the essence of what was best in the old Nokia we used to love so much.

And FM radio? Yes. FM radio. The chips that the iPhone uses, come with FM radio capability built in nowadays. And Apple rather than give us free music of the universal standard of FM radio, of course in their iDictator mindset crippled the FM radio functionality so the iPhone user - who tends to LISTEN TO MUSIC and have good earphones - cannot listen to FM radio! This is all to maximize the profits of the iTaxman - they would rather you are forced to spend money in the iTunes store buying paid music than like an evil pirate, listen to free despicable FM radio.... (the chip HAS the functionality but Apple iSadists will cripple the functionality so you can't have it). Nokia put FM radios to all its musicphones the moment the technology became possible. The exact opposite way. For most people in Africa, the first FM radio their family ever owned and the family was able to listen to - was on a Nokia basic phone, the FM functionality that came with the basic phone. They then used the 'loudspeaker mode' ie the 'speakerphone' mode (another Nokia invention that everybody laughed at but now every phone has). This is the very core of the Nokia Way. This is 'Connecting People'. And it is the philosophy of harmony with the standards in the world, with open technologies that build, not closed proprietary and expensive systems to shield and lock into a private exclusive garden.

OUR PRIDE AND JOY

Nokia was not a perfect company but boy, as a Finn, was I proud of our biggest corporation and what it represented. It won awards as the most 'green' company of the handset makers, and even as it gave us wonderful tech at the top-end of the technology spectrum (Nokia had an app store before Apple, had a 4 inch screen size before the iPhone, had a phablet before the iPhone, had NFC before the iPhone, had DVD quality video recording before the iPhone, gosh, the joke was, to see what will come in the next iPhone, look at a 3 year old Nokia) what made me personally most proud of, in Nokia was that it was truly 'Connecting People' in the Emerging World, who had never been digitally connected before. Their first phone, their first music player, their first internet browser, their first camera, their first FM radio, their first payment instrument, their first video camera - was a Nokia phone. Nokia was the most valuable brand throughout vast areas of the Emerging World. Not the most valuable PHONE brand or tech brand. The. Most. Valuable. Brand. Period. More valuable than IBM or Coca Cola or Mercedes Benz or Rolls Royce or Apple. Nokia, the most valuable brand in the country, from India to Nigeria to Brazil. And then when I showed my Nokia business card back in the day, gosh they were impressed. Later, when I said I have written 12 books, that did not impress my audiences as much as telling them I used to work for Nokia at its headquarters. As I have often said, if you cut me, my blood is not red, I bleed Nokia blue.

So the past six years were a nightmare for me personally and we've lived through that trauma on this blog as I chronicled all the blunders of the worst CEO in history who demolished my most beloved brand. And we saw the sad aftermath of where the Nokia handset brand then ended at Microsoft and its failure there too. But it is nearly Christmas and this is a magical time. Lets wish upon a star. Lets ask Santa Claus for some good will to all men and the safe successful return of Nokia brand to many millions possibly again one day, billions of pockets.

I was literally the first person to say, the Microsoft Windows alliance would doom Nokia's handset business. It was a catastrophic mistake. It would end in Nokia having to sell its handset business. I said so not just ON THE DAY it was announced, I said it within MINUTES of the news breaking. I said it on Twitter and came on this blog and wrote my prophesy about it. Not just that Nokia would fail, it would ruin the handset business, not only ruin what was then only HALF of Nokia's handset business, its smartphone business - but this would doom all of Nokia's handset business including its dumbphone side. I was the first to predict Microsoft would have to buy the doomed handset operation. I said the Nokia CEO would be fired for this Windows decision. I said even after Microsoft would buy the Nokia handset business, it could not make it work - and in less than 3 years after Microsoft would buy the Nokia handset business, that business would either be shut down or sold (as it was then obviously sold, in less than 3 years from when Microsoft took over). Nobody else made that series of forecasts. NOBODY else made all those calls. I had every one of them correctly. I did not ever call for a Nokia collapse prior to that date so I was not a Nokia-hater. I had never said Windows smartphone OS was doomed prior to 2011, even as I am an openly-admitted Microsoft-hater and have been for three decades. Prior to year 2011, I have never said Windows smartphones were doomed. Its not like someone who every year says something and one year he is finally right. I never said those before, but I was the first to call it, and on every one of those Nokia related forecasts, I was not just the first to call it, I was correct 100% of the time. I did not make ONE BAD call of something I said would happen, that did NOT happen, either. If you read this blog from 2010 to today and only read the articles that mentioned 'Nokia' in its title, you knew PERFECTLY what was going to happen to Nokia (and its partner Microsoft in smartphones) for the past 6 years, correctly foretelling EVERY stage including the repeated layoffs, including WHEN the company was going to generate losses, including how badly the market share was going to collapse etc. Nobody else comes anywhere near close.

And in 2013. In September 2013 when we learned with a very heavy heart, that yes, Nokia's handset business was going to be sold (to Microsoft) that was when I wrote on this blog:

"We will miss you Nokia as a consumer brand. Please fare well as the networks provider and if the gods of technology have any sense of justice, they will let our Nokia return one day to again live with us, in our pockets ...and in our hearts."

The gods of technology have smiled upon us and shown us mercy, they are letting Nokia return to our pockets. I would later prophesize further that 'poetic justice' would be for Microsoft not to shut down its disastrously unprofitable and horrendously unsuccessful Nokia handset unit, but rather to 'sell it back' to Nokia. There was some speculation that Microsoft might sell its Nokia business to some other tech company. I thought the best idea would be to 'sell it back' to Nokia. And while HMD is not Nokia, HMD is a start-up based in Finland, staffed by ex Nokia senior execs, its nearly that 'Hollywood ending' that I had dreamed of. The Nokia handset brand, for what is tarnished remains left of it, is kind of returning home, or close to home, to Finland. And Nokia the actual corporation (telecoms infrastructure giant) still will benefit out of some licencing deals with the brand if this HMD entity can make this Nokia brand return actually work out, commercially in the coming years.

So I write to you, Santa Claus. Please give us technology fans and of course your most humble local servants, the Finns who endure those miserably cold bitter snowy Finnish winters with you and work in your sheds, a Christmas Gift. Let the HMD venture with Foxconn succeed and let this new returning Nokia brand have the very essence of the Nokia that the world grew to love, as the world itself became more connected. Let those people who will experience a Nokia brand in 2017 and beyond, cherish it as deeply as they did their first Nokias a decade or even two before.

A LOYAL CUSTOMER BASE

So lets look a bit about HMD's mission and its particular challenges. First the dumbphones side. I mean the Microsoft handset business that was not smartphones (Nokia featurephones that included the Asha type 'nearly smartphones' and ultra-cheap basic phones) was in a death-spiral. It had no synergy to Microsoft's future, the devices too low cost to even be possible to run the bloated Windows OS so these customers were not relevant to Microsoft's visions of its future. The dumbphone-side handset unit was occasionally profitable even under Elop at Nokia (while the smartphone side, Lumia Windows smartphones never once delivered even one quarter of a profit) but when Microsoft had to cut costs out of its failing hardware business, those cuts of course came deeply in this undesirable part of the Nokia acquisition. From HMD's side, there is a huge upside but also an urgent need. Nearly 10% of all humans who have any type of mobile phone in their pockets today, still has a Nokia branded phone! When they walk into that phone store in the next 30 months, they will ask to see a new Nokia, even if they have become 'sold' on perhaps switching brands by say local advertising, they are existing loyal happy Nokia users, and they will at least want to see what the latest Nokia looks like (within their price range).

This is an ENORMOUS opportunity. That is 195 million customers who walk into a phone store worldwide, in year 2017. For context, remember Apple will sell about 220 million iPhones this year. Now by far MOST of those 195 million Nokia owners who will replace or upgrade their phone next year, will not be smartphone users (only about 1 in 7 will have a smartphone, 6 in 7 will have a dumbphone of the Nokia brand) BUT for about a third of them, this is when they take their step into buying their first-ever smartphone. And for nearly all who remain, the two thirds who now own a dumbphone and will replace it with another very-low-cost dumbphone again, for them, they do not know it, but it will very likely be the last dumbphone they ever bought because their NEXT phone will be a smartphone. Their NEXT upgrade/replacement happens around year 2019 or 2020 when 95% of all phones sold will be .. (ultra-low cost basic Android) smartphones.

Nokia used to have the best loyalty in the handset business. Even in its decline stage, in the EMERGING WORLD markets, Nokia continued to have high, and often yes, best loyalty. Those 195 million who walk into a handset store next year to replace an old well-worn Nokia phone, will be delighted if a new Nokia fits their budget and roughly their expectations of functionality and features.

I am not in any way suggesting that HMD and Foxconn can convert that 195 million user potential into anywhere near 195 million sales but they might get half. And then if its roughly say 100 million handsets, you do see, thats already nearly HALF the SCALE of the global shipments of iPhones (also made by Foxconn/Hon Hai). So there is the first giant opportunity and a considerable strategy and management challenge - how to grab as many of those potential Nokia buyers, and feed them 'something' nearly anything, to just hold onto them. To do that somewhat profitably, and get the HMD-Foxconn alliance up on its feet and up to scale. That scale means sourcing parts, it means staffing sales, it means bulk shipment discounts at air cargo, it means preferred placement in in-store sales.

Here is the HUGE upside to that prospect. Almost every dumbphone (in the Emerging World) is sold through the IDENTICAL sales channel as the smartphone in that country. It its a carrier-sales model, the carrier stores decide. If its a retail distribution model, then the handset retailers stock both smartphones and dumbphones. Then if you have roughly 5% of the handset market (even as most of it is ultra-low-cost handsts) you DO HAVE SHELF SPACE in EVERY STORE. A rival who sells 2% or 1% may not be in every store. Samsung will sell 25% and will be in every store. Apple is so expensive you'd have to be a fool not to include iPhones in your store. But Sony will not be in every store. HTC will not be in every store. LG will not be in every store. Only Nokia will be the one other brand, in year 2017, in most Emerging World markets, where the Nokia brand will be in essentially every retail outlet for handsets.

Here HMD needs a smart strategy to deliver 'just profitable enough' models that are truly 'priced to fly off the shelves' at the lower and mid-price levels, to lock as many of those customers as possible. To make the business itself sustainable, to stop the decline in total sales and market share that has gone on for six years. And to try not to damage the Nokia brand itself in doing that (not cut corners, bad products, exploding batteries, antennagate, bendygate, alarm clocks that don't wake you up, you know, the usual problems in handsets). But that will not excite the market or get any leadership credits. So HMD should (or could) also do a few selected 'flagship' class products - ideally several launched at various points in the year, say one in February for Barcelona, a second one for the summer and a third for Christmas 2017 season. Use those flagships to help grab the headlines, tell the story of the amazing comeback. Showcase some tech leadership and help sustain the image that Nokia stands for premium quality and performance. THOSE premium phones do not need to sell in large numbers and they can end up being prices quite high (to maintain profitability) but I would expect more than one flagship class phone out during 2017 to just remind Nokia owners that their brand is one of the leaders and has nothing to be ashamed of, when compared to a Galaxy or iPhone.

Here we have seen rumors and some leaked photos of some products in the mid-price range of the first Android smartphones. Starting in the 150 dollar range, mid-spec performance and features but what seems to be a very 'logical' mid-field product offering by specs. Ticks every box, has every common feature you'd expect in roughly the right range of specs. You can probably find an Android smartphone of almost the same specs for say 100 dollars from a 'nobody brand' but probably no Samsung or rival in the 150 dollar price will in any way significantly beat the Nokia. This would be the intended big seller to reverse the sale collapse of Nokia smartphones and get the Nokia smartphone market share back into growth and hoping to get back into the Top 10 by say year 2018. It will not be a phone you or I would want for ourselves but it might be a good value phone to buy as a gift for a teenager for example. And this phone will be aimed to sell for the middle class adults in the Emerging World who would love an iPhone but know its beyond their budget. 150 dollars is a bit below the global average price of all phones. Its about half the average price of all phones. Its nicely near the sweet spot in terms of volume sales (remember difference between average and median). If we look at median prices of smartphones in the Emerging World, 150 dollars is very close to exactly that. This is not a flagship. This is a class of smartphone intended to sell in large quantities to the masses. Good plan. Now what about a possible flagship then?

THE X FACTOR

So then this week we had the story out of China of a possible first flagship. Its just a rumor, we don't know, but the pictures seemed to suggest dual camera (like the iPhone, so one wide angle camera and one telephoto camera) and LED flash and .... also Xenon flash. I think most who looked at the specs of the Chinese story went with the parts about the CPU and screen specs etc but the real story is the one with the X. Xenon. That picture is clearly a Xenon flash unit. If the picture is accurate that the flagship has 2 cameras, and both an LED flash and Xenon flash, that would be very ... telling news about the philosophy we could see on the flagship class phones. Ever since Nokia entered cameraphones, it ran away with the best-cameraphone-of-the-year awards, ranging from the breathtaking N93 (first ever phone with 3mp camera, AND optical zoom, ie real zoom not pixel nonsense of digital zoom we all have but proper professional camera-style optical zoom made with glass, and DVD quality video recording etc); to the N5, the N82, the N86, and the N8, each miles ahead of the competition in terms of their cameras; culminating with Pureview. The technology that just blew any comparisons away and singlehandedly ended the megapixel race. (For those readers who aren't aware of this, the Nokia 808 Pureview smartphone had a camera sensor with 41 megapixels. That is not a misprint. Rival cameras at the time had typically 8mp. Nokia put 41mp into its phone? Even professional cameras do 24mp or 32mp and almost no top smartphones today do more than 20mp but back in 2012, Nokia gave a cameraphone with a sensor of 41 megapixels. At that time the only cameras with bigger sensors were on US spy satellites up in space. Literally, no Nikon or Canon professional camera costing 7,000 dollars just for the body alone, had that many pixels ie could get that much detail out of a picture). The 808 Pureview and its sister phone later on Windows, Lumia 1020, utterly devastated the expectations of camera quality in terms of their sensor pixel count (and various other tech too). Only after the lunatic CEO decision, did Nokia's leadership in cameras end and as I wrote on this blog, the ultimate cameraphone ever made is as of today still, the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom (from 2 years ago, sadly Samsung seems to have decided not to update this pocket miracle, in their cost-cutting frenzy). if you want to read the definitive internet article about cameraphones, my epic blog is here.

Lets get back to the X-factor. What is Xenon flash and why do we care. It means the 'real' flash you have in any professional flashgun the wedding photographer uses. It is what is on your Nikon or Olympus or Canon camera. It is not the type of 'flash' what you have on your iPhone or almost any cameraphone. We have what is called 'LED flash' in almost all smartphones. Xenon is 'real' flash for cameras. LED flash is generated by powerful LED lights that are turned on for about 1/10th of a second. Xenon flash is brilliant light tube that has to be charged before it can deliver its flash, which lasts less than 1/10,000th of a second and can be as short as 1/100,000th of a second. Xenon creates that brilliantly white light, reaches far further, and only Xenon flash can stop motion (LED flash pictures often have blur, while Xenon is always sharp). But Xenon as such, is not our point. Yes, I'm an ex semi-pro photographer and I know the difference and I love my Xenon on my cameraphones but this is not about flash photography. This is about the GUTS of that Nokia flagship.

You cannot put a Xenon flash onto the iPhone. There is a technical reason to it. But Nokia had a Xenon flash on its top cameraphones as far back as year 2008. That is the story that I think most analysts missed about that picture leaked from China. Xenon does not mean just that Nokia might have an expensive excellent flash unit installed onto its flagship for great inside pictures at night. It means something else. It means the camera HAS to have a physical mechanical shutter. Not a cheap electronic shutter like almost all cameraphones (including nearly all Nokias). Only a mechanical shutter will allow a Xenon flash unit to function (on current tech, at least). This is an expensive additional gadget that is not necessary when taking basic camera functionality into a phone (simple camera, like on an iPhone) but it IS needed if you do a proper serious camera (like any top Nokia cameraphone, or ANY Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Minolta, Sony etc DSLR or pocket camera, including ALL those cameras that used film before).

If the first Nokia flagship indeed comes with Xenon flash (and I hope it does) that means one thing. It means the cameraphone will have a mechanical shutter. And you my dear reader are going 'who cares?'. Yeah. Who cares? It means that the CAMERA part of the flagship has been done with the utter love and care of Nokia's best attention to always creating the best camera possible onto a phone. Not cheap plastic like an iPhone with a puny small Sony sensor inside. But literally the best technology that is possible, to fit inside a phone. I would love for the first Nokia flagship to have Pureview technology. I do not expect it to have that (yet). I would love the first Nokia flagship to beat every existing cameraphone by every spec, but I do not expect that to happen. What I will be utterly happy with, is if we get the 'essence of Nokia' in the first camera of Nokia's first return era flagship. The first Nokia flagship that was manufactured by Foxconn. The first designed by HMD? I would truly be delighted it it has Xenon flash, not because Xenon is better than LED (which it is, for still photography but note, Xenon cannot be used in video, which is why it ALSO has LED light for video). It would mean the new Nokia flagship has proper camera 'guts' inside, it has a mechanical shutter. It is designed to be a proper camera.

The camerawars have quieted down a lot in the smartphone space since the first Pureview put an end to the megapixel race. There is the occasional optical zoom. Apple has now done the dual camera idea with a separate wide angle and separate telephoto lens idea (less elegant than optical zoom but far better than nothing or haha, digital zoom). It seems like Nokia will do the dual camera type telephoto lens too (good, I'd love that, it would be more than I expected in the first flagship). But if Nokia has Xenon flash and a real shutter, it means HMD is SERIOUS about serving those loyal Nokia owners who loved Nokia for its CAMERAS. How big is that segment? Is it 2% or 5% or 10% or 25% of smartphone owners who would rank the camera feature the most important? If the returning Nokia brand can properly capitalize on a premium camera, and now running on Android as the OS, then Nokia could find a nice profitable niche at the top end and win a bunch of awards, and this could be a reason any store in any country in the world, would like to feature the new Nokia flagship and its sales staff eagerly try to sell it to the random Galaxy owner coming in for their next new Android based smartphone.

In 2012, a Nokia survey of its own return customers found that the camera was the top tech that their customers wanted. A 2015 Zogby study of US youth found that the camera was deemed 'crucial' by 96% of the youth! There is definitely a market segment that could be served by good camera-optimized smartphones but how big that segment is, that is not now known, because the camera side of the industry has fallen asleep. There may be a big sleeping giant there, or it may be just a small niche. We will not know until someone really tries it and it does seem by these rumors, that HMD is willing to explore that opportunity. It could be a big key to a strong return by the brand.

The first flagship will not be the ultimate that HMD and Foxconn can build. It will be needed to initially explore this part of what once was a Nokia stronghold. If a valuable market is discovered there, then the NEXT version, for about year 2018, now THAT could be a monster cameraphone, that could be the next Pureview (perhaps a 909 Pureview haha). But right now, Dear Santa, please let us get our old Nokia back, the one that gave great tech at reasonable prices, that was open and lived in all standards, that was user-friendly and did not cripple or damage its tech abilities. Let the HMD-Foxconn alliance make this partnership work and let the world start to be Connecting People again. A lot of people around the world do love 'that' Nokia even after all the Microsoft years and a comeback would be nice to see. And for the industry, to see a company built on Nokia philosophy, showing the gentler kinder cooperative way, rather than Apple's iTax iRule iSheep way; that too would be a breath of fresh air. After all, Android is Linux. And Linus Torvalds - the father of Linux, well he also came from the land of Santa Claus, yes Linus is a Finn too. So a Nokia phone running on Android ie on Linux is far more 'Finnish' than a Lumia running on Windows ever could hope to be.

For those who would like to understand 'everything' about the camera part of a mobile phone, including mechanical shutters, Xenon flashes, sensor sizes (not just megapixel counts) and things such as optical zooms, lens construction and depth-of-view etc, this is the definitive article on the camera side of mobile. Still utterly unmatched by any other article on the internet. Enjoy.

For those who would like a longer stroll down Nokia's memory lane, here is my love letter to Nokia, when the news came that the handset business was about to be sold to Microsoft.

And on more practical matters, if you need the numbers and stats of the mobile handset industry today, what sizes of screens they have or how many are smartphones or who has 3G or WiFi or bluetooth etc, all the stats you could hope for are in the TomiAhonen Phone Book statistical volume 200 pages, 100 stats, comes out every two years for Christmas. I am about to finish this year's edition so if you buy the 2014 edition now, you get both for the price of one. You get the older version immediately and also will be the first to receive the 2016 edition when I release it in some days from now. See table of contents and ordering info here.

Lastly for those who need to see the future of mobile, as seen by the most accurate forecaster of the mobile industry, my latest forecast came out last year, it gives industry forecasts to year 2018, and why would you even consider anyone else's forecast than mine haha. My forecast is here.  

Comments

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Everybody

The PC evolution(end) discussion is very illuminating and has a lot of good points. Let me throw my several cents into it. To start with, I worked at one of the early pioneers of the PC world, OCS out of New York and we made our own computers back then (Intel DOS clones, later also Windows). And I've seen a parallel forming with lessons from the several stages of the PC wars, to today's smartphone wars.

So on the PC, it was the first 'multi-purpose' digital device that consumers could buy. It could do many things like replace the typewriter, the calculator, the fax machine, etc. After it grew more to get the WWW connectivity, thats what powered the PC to its long run as the pre-eminent consumer gadget in terms of its versatility and endurance against other rivals. Look at Skype, killing off the fixed landline telephone business (alongside mobile obviously) or Amazon and what it did to the bookstore and DVD store.

Some of the PC's core business is with enterprise/corporate customers doing 'business' computing needs. Accounting, spreadsheets, correspondence, powerpoints etc. That is a need for which the PC design suits very well - keyboard, mouse, large screen. That is the type of work that also needs 'professionals' and they need good working environments (cubicle farms) and that is work done seated and in longer periods of time (like say programming). That type of work is a natural evolution of computers from before the PC, when mainframe computers were used to do the accounting and billing and various 'computer pie graphs' haha, before the PC. That would be so special they'd often get a mention on TV or in print, that this was a 'computer-generated' pie graph... (therefore it had to be VERY accurate)

A part of the installed base of PCs (excluding tablets) is in that type of work environment and I am certain that need will live on for quite a while. SOME will work to shift that to smaller devices, whether a tablet based solution or even a smartphone - including now the rumor that Samsung will do another attempt at that dockable PC idea that for example Nokia did quite excellently back with say the E7 as I illustrated here on this blog back in 2011. I plugged an HDMI portable monitor/TV to my E7, a mouse and keyboard, and a decent-sized thumb drive and had a workable if not somewhat cumbersome PC replacement solution. I didn't end up ditching my PC but if I had no other way, I could have easily written my blog, done my spreadsheets and even written another book with that Nokia solution back then. It will be done today even more effortlessly with better tech but the idea of the smartphone being the heart of the dockable solution, that has been out there and many variations of it have been on offer. It hasn't set the PC world into terminal decline (yet).

There will be erosion in the PC world, some laptops and desktops will be replaced by tablets or smartphones but not most. A bigger damage is the lack of need to replace the PC. The electronics are pretty durable and there is no burning tech evolution that would drive the need to get something more out of the work PC. So the replacement cycle keeps extending to longer and longer. And the worst damage is the collapse of the non-work PC market. The CONSUMER has found a far better/easier/faster/cheaper way to do Facebook and online banking and whatever shopping etc they want. For the consumer a tablet is far superior to a desktop and marginally better (but far cheaper) than a laptop. For some consumers then the phablet becomes the preferred choice vs the tablet, but for others, they will HOLD ONTO the existing tablet, while upgrading/replacing their smartphone. So once the basic household ownership of tablets reaches its penetration level, it stops growing past that. But smartphones are replaced every 29 months.

Then we do get the sad shrinking market phenomenon. There is not enough business to sustain all the players. The smart ones shifted to mobile (Apple, Lenovo) and the dumb ones cut off that opportunity (Dell, HP). The other players in the supply chain (Intel, Microsoft) have to find their opportunities because the PC side (with tablets) is shrinking and will not sustain them, they HAVE to find either a role in mobile or some other way to grow in some other tech area. Most of the names of the famed PC industry will be as quaint in the next decade as Univac and Honeywell and Burroughs are now to anyone who is studying the IT industry haha. Wayne I think you were the one who mentioned the cinema industry. I agree with that analogy. I myself am reminded of the camera industry - Minolta and Konica, two of the four big hardware makers are out of the cameras business; Kodak famously went bankrupt not once but twice in the 'golden era' of photography as the digital camera/cameraphone industry wrecked their business.

I think for the PC (desktop & laptop) far less sales is coming, they won't die, but not nearly as many makers can survive as exist today. For the tablet industry its worse because so many rushed into tablets (and they are even more clones of each other than PCs had become). The rush to cheapest standard Android tablet has created no room for any profit margins and the industry ran out of profits long ago. So the tablet (non-Phablet) market will suffer far more and also see severe consolidation. Some few giants in the style of the HP-Compaq merger can happen to create some sustainable 'computer' giant of modest size, nothing near an Apple or Lenovo or Samsung. Its possible to be a specialist not unlike say Volvo trucks which still today sell profitably huge numbers of trucks worldwide while the consumer car business went belly-up.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tester]

@chithanh:

"Your observation is partially correct but your conclusion is wrong. Read the first Gartner link. Business logic is moving into web/cloud-based applications. The office PC is relegated to displaying a browser window. That is when businesses look at TCO and dump PCs in favor of devices that just run a browser. Whether it comes in tablet form factor, a smartphone with display output, or some small box containing a mobile SoC will depend on the individual needs of the business."

Yes, I hear that all the time. It may partially happen but there's still a lot of things a cloud solution cannot provide. I can promise you that some fools will go that route exclusively and once they get severely burned they'll reverse course.

"Secondly, just today at CES, NVidia introduced "Geforce Now" (apparently taking on Sony's PlayStation Now). A cloud-based gaming service. This is partially driven by demand and partially a by-product of server-based remote 3D rendering for workstations; graphics vendors have seen the trend and are working on it for quite some time already. The Internet connection in most places is not quite up to the task yet, but this will presumably change in advanced mobile markets with the introduction of 5G."

Do you want to know why this won't work out? For the simple reason that the traffic volume is constantly rising. The infrastructure providers already have a hard time keeping up with bandwidth demands, and in time they got a certain standard implemented it will no longer be enough, and they have to restart again - leaving large numbers of customers on underpowered connections. And at some point it will no longer be possible to maintain the insane amount of necessary infrastructure.
It seems many are fooled again by the eternal fairy tale of endless magic growth and completely forget that someone has to PAY for this in the first place - in the end it will be the customers, but if internet becomes too expensive all those cool new ideas will fall flat on their face. And then they may reconsider and realize that the classic locally installed PC maybe wasn't such a bad idea after all...

"PCs became big also due to economies of scale. Developing hardware exclusively for PCs is expensive. Once the numbers are no longer there, I expect that such development will stop, and we will only see mobile technology - repurposed into doing something similar to what PCs once did - going forward. Anything that such mobile technology is unable to do will be done remotely on a local server or in the cloud."

We'll see. Fact is: The high end hardware will always be needed. One segment where I think you are already proven wrong is graphics cards for PCs. The vast majority of PCs no longer has a dedicated graphics card, they exclusively rely on integrated chipsets. Did this raise the prices for dedicated graphics hardware? No, absolutely not.

@Tomi:

That almost sounds as if there were only two segments of the market - enterprise who needs PCs and consumers who don't. But what about a type of consumer that actively uses their computer as a work tool? I know countless people who do that for which a smartphone or even a tablet would never be an adequate replacement.

And what about the gamers?

I think the market is far more diverse with so different needs than it is being made out.
As for profitability, no I do not expect the bigshots to stay alive here, the PC market would be far better served by small shops which can better adjust to their customers' needs. The prebuilt PCs I see on offer are garbage. The only way to get a good machine is to have it custom-built, and if that remains this way none of the large manufacturers will survive long-term because their market is indeed eroding.

[chithanh]

@Tomi
> It hasn't set the PC world into terminal decline (yet).

Maybe I should clarify, with terminal decline I mean that the sales have peaked and from now on will be on a downwards trajectory. By that definition, the terminal decline has already onset.
In the end (which may take more than a decade to reach) PCs will be irrelevant to computing.

Whether the end will look like horse carriages which were disrupted by cars but are still around in some form today, or like VHS tape which was disrupted by DVDs and has completely disapppeared from the market I don't know.

@Tester
> It may partially happen but there's still a lot of things a cloud solution cannot provide.

Is is happening right now. New development of business applications shifted already to web and cloud based ones. PC-based applications are mostly maintained. Just look at job listings.

> Do you want to know why this won't work out? For the simple reason that the traffic volume is constantly rising. The infrastructure providers already have a hard time keeping up with bandwidth demands

Not enough infrastructure bandwidth to support a couple million hardcore gamers? That seems preposterous. Netflix delivers at higher bitrates than PlayStation Now. Connectivity (and latency) is the real issue here.

> Did this raise the prices for dedicated graphics hardware? No, absolutely not.

High-end gaming hardware commands higher prices than ever. This is of course due to many factors, the competition between AMD, Intel and NVidia traditionally more than anything else. But we see signs of the companies trying to squeeze profits out of their gaming customers with outrageous prices for high-end products in the face of declining unit sales. This is not totally unlike Microsoft, who currently milk dry the businesses unfortunate enough to be locked into Microsoft products.

> I know countless people who do that for which a smartphone or even a tablet would never be an adequate replacement

So, how many of those would not be satisfied with the performance of a Snapdragon 835 smartphone which docks into Monitor/Keyboard/Mouse and can run legacy x86 applications through binary translation?

> the PC market would be far better served by small shops which can better adjust to their customers' needs. The prebuilt PCs I see on offer are garbage

If it were true that PC makers no longer offer products to customers' needs, we would see business shifting from large PC OEMs to the DIY market, but the decline affects e.g. motherboard makers too.
Plus, even smaller shops depend on off-the-shelf components which require the big manufacturers in order to remain viable products.

> The only way to get a good machine is to have it custom-built

While I agree with that statement for my personal machine, I am making much different observations from those around me.
For every person I know who actually cares about the components of their PC, I know 10 or more people who don't care at all. Anecdotes, sure, but reflected in the relative size of the DIY market and custom shops versus large OEMs.

[Abdul Muis]

Nokia E1 receive 3C certification
http://www.androidpure.com/nokia-e1-ta-1000-passes-3c-certification-coming-soon/

Here the leaked specs
http://nokiapoweruser.com/exclusive-entry-level-nokia-android-phone-nokia-e1-specifications/

Nokia E1 leaked Specs:

1.4 GHz Qaud-Core Snapdragon 425 Processor
Adreno 308 GPU
2 GB RAM
Android Nougat 7.0
5.2 / 5.3-inch, 720p display
16 GB internal storage
13 MP Rear camera
5 MP FFC

[Per "wertigon" Ekström]

I sure hope Nokia will succeed in their return, and I hope that they can get back to flagship status within a couple of years delivering solid phones...

But other than that I have very little opinion on it right now. Watching the field but I do not feel I have much expertise to lend here. My stance is, wait and see. :)

Re: PC, I think the future will be akin to what Ubuntu were trying to make. PCs will disappear, slowly but surely, and be replaced by mobile.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we will throw out Photoshop, 3D Studio Max, etc. I'm saying these will move to the phone, and the phone will be docked to your workstation.

It is possible that these workstations will include some extra computational unit, or possibly that we return to mainframe solutions for compute-heavy stuff. But I think that cell phones today are on parity with desktop computers, hardware wise.

That's also why I do not think Ubuntu phone is completely dead yet, nor Windows Phone. They will keep working in the quiet, and when their convergence is ready - when they make sense - they will start pitching themselves to professionals.

Of course, it might be much easier to take Android and turn it into a desktop PC than take Ubuntu and turn it into a phone OS. Future will tell. But I think one of the two will happen in the future.

[Wayne Borean]

@PWE

I liked the idea of Ubuntu Phone. Ubuntu has been a good, solid beginner operating system for a long time. By beginner I mean easy to use, and maintain for someone with a low level of knowledge about computer operating systems. I'd like to see it come back.

Microsoft has a huge problem trying to get back into phones. Too many companies have been burnt by Microsoft. A common saying was, 'A Microsoft Partner is a future Microsoft victim'. Look at the number of Microsoft partners which are defunct. The mobile operators got a good solid warning of what could happen to them when Microsoft bought Skype, and they aren't likely to forget that little episode.

@Wayne Brady

I helped our firm start the switch to web apps. The boss was looking at buying Microsoft Project. We got all the pricing together for it, and while he was suffering from sticker shock I pitched him Dot Project and by the time I left (for medical reasons) the firm had been using it happily for 3-4 years.

http://www.dotproject.net

We ran it on of our own servers, and it was really well received. Especially the price!

For more applications web apps do a fantastic job, for others virtualization may be a better option. Both reduce the need for desktop/laptop computers.

@Everyone

I'm very skeptical of the long term viability of the desktop/laptop market. I know a couple of people in the industry who are of the opinion that the crash in computer sales is because the manufacturers aren't offering what people want, but instead stupid form factors (like convertibles) which buyers don't like. They are wrong. For many people their first computer is a mobile device, like a friend of mine who has never owned a computer, but loves his iPhone, and is currently playing a couple of online games.

The problem is a mobile device can do 90% of what most users need, and has a bunch of capabilities that a computer doesn't have. That is a classical disruptive situation.

We may see the resurrection of companies like Osborne or Commodore which produce small runs of general purpose computers, to fill the small number of needs that mobile can't immediately fill.

[Abdul Muis]

Nokia have made the Nokia Phone official

https://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones

with the Nokia Android SmartPhone named Nokia 6

[Abdul Muis]

PS: From the image in that web pages, it seems that the Nokia 6 is Dual Sim Card, and both Sim 1 & Sim 2 can be 4G at the same time...

[Abdul Muis]

5.5" FHD, 2.5D Gorilla Glass, Polarized screen
Android 7.0
Qualcom 430
4GB/64GB
16MP/8MP
Dual (amplified) speaker, Dolby Atmos
CNY 1699 (US$245)

http://www.hmdglobal.com/press/2017-01-08-nokia-6/

[Abdul Muis]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Sq5ZjZ-kFQ
Nokia 6 Teaser Video...

[ChrisB]

Hi Tomi, here's a professor who still doesn't get it: https://theconversation.com/nokia-had-the-worlds-best-smartphone-then-came-the-inferior-iphone-70958

[chithanh]

I think the Nokia 6 was a good move by HMD/Nokia, same as the N1 tablet it has its purposes. And the N1 tablet surely achieved what it needed to achieve.

HMD will release a phone in the price range where most are selling (smartphone ASP was $295 in 2015 according to Gartner and will drop to $237 by 2020), in the single biggest mobile market (China). Surely cheaper and more expensive models will follow in due time.

But for now, no need to deal with worldwide regulation/distribution/marketing etc. until they get the operation running. Tackle one problem at a time.

[Abdul Muis]

Nokia 6 picture, including the box picture

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_6_handson_shows_that_sweet_metal_body_in_all_its_glory-news-22613.php

[Abdul Muis]

@Wayne

You definitely have not went to China!!!

I've been to China quite a lot since 1999 and seeing the China transformation in Economy, and I can tell you that China loves premium product AT ANY price point. This is the reason that iPhone growth in China was exponential before Huawei, Oppo, Vivo start becoming more premium. and start beating apple at price/performance in the premiumness of material/feel/design.

Currently at Nokia 6 price, the Nokia 6 is the most premium with a great specs (4GB/64GB). This phone will sell a million unit in a couple of minute when it start taking order.

"And for what? What will they gain for selling a few million midrange phones (if they can manage that)? How much money is there to be made?"

Enough money to be made!!! Of course, not all the top employee can buy a Ferrari. But it will be more than enough!!!

"How are they going to fund the development of a premium model in every price category?"

As I said, (1) enough money to be made, (2) the premium model will have more profit, (3) not every company want to be greedy like apple.

"What of the hundreds of millions they were going to put into the launch marketing campaign? Where is the Xenon flash? The 40mp sensor?"

The Xenon & 40mp sensor is NOT for the Nokia 6. It's for Nokia 9!!! The top of the line with SD 835/8GB/256GB.

[Abdul Muis]

"One distributor in China, the most cut throat competitive market in the world. Not one China Mobile, the beast of a network, or on ANY telco. This is worse than Apple coming out with the iPhone only on AT&T. And HMD is no Apple."

You're thinking the American way.... I don't know the precise number, but in Asia, most phone sold through distributor, not carrier.

[chithanh]

@Wayne Brady
> There is simply no way that HMD and Foxconn have an edge that allows them to create a better product and still charge less money and yet make a profit in the current Chinese market.

I think you misjudge the purpose of the Nokia 6.
This phone is decidedly average in almost every regard (processor, screen size and resolution, RAM, price, you name it), just with a slightly more premium feel.

The big profits will be made at the high end, which we haven't yet seen from Nokia/HMD.

> How are they going to fund the development of a premium model in every price category?

Do you seriously think that HMD is going to run out of money before they manage to launch their full lineup?

[Abdul Muis]

@Wayne

From your statement, you just want Nokia to fail. If Nokia charge too much, you wayne (I mean whine). If nokia charge too less, you also wayne.

Xiaomi/Vivo/Oppo/Huawei only do premium at the high end. Their mid product quality is medium. Their low end have a lower quality. What Nokia just did here is doing premium quality in the low end. Nokia did something different!!!

[chithanh]

@Wayne Brady
> I have no idea how deep HMD's pockets are. Love for you to tell me.

Then why do you write "How are they going to fund the development of a premium model in every price category?" as if you have a doubt about it?

> I don't desire Nokia to fail, I'm giving my analysis of their position.

Sorry, but your "analysis" is just voicing concern after concern with little to no basis.

> Samsung has been crashing in China even though they have products in every tier. Samsung and Apple both have headwinds against rising nationalism in China.

Nationalism is not new in China. Nokia controlled the Chinese smartphone market for many years, when their phones were not even produced by Foxconn...

> Already the sharks in China are making "premium" phones at rock bottom prices.

Can you tell me a Chinese phone that has comparable specs and "premium" features (aluminum unibody, etc.) to the Nokia 6?
Vernee Apollo 4GB/64GB comes to mind, even with QHD instead of FHD screen but slightly more expensive. However it has a camera weakness.
LeEco Le Max 2 maybe? Very heavy, doesn't have 3.5 mm audio jack.
Maybe you can tell me one such phone.

[Abdul Muis]

@Wayne

The reason that any current player won't react now is because if they react, they will lost the sales at their upper range (medium and high end segment)!!! And they will lost substantial profit!!!! The reason nokia can do this because nokia don't have anything right now, and it's buying market share... buying market share means, that you sell something that were valued more for a little less. so you gain market share faster. This is the way for new player to get a foothold in the game.

The opposite of buying market share is milking the brand. This is what BB did in the last 8 years. Selling uncompetitive product at a price that were questionable by most. This is what Apple is heading right now if they don't change their strategy.

[Abdul Muis]

@Whiner

"Just look at Samsung's number you posted. How pathetic is 45M sales of their flagship phone (add another 50% to account for the Note). Some where south of 70M total "profitable phones" while Apple sell 211M in a down year. And nobody else even charts in comparison."

I don't really know if you SINCERELY wanna talk/discuss, or you just WANNA TROLL everybody in here? As I said, you were taking the words out of context. THE NUMBER YOU QUOTE WERE WRONG!!!!!! I will explain to you ONCE AGAIN, I'M ASSUMING you have a LOW IQ!!!!

Explanation!!! PLEASE READ THIS 10 TIMES, so you're brain will understand it.
* In 2012, Samsung sold 65 million of Galaxy S3. IT DIDN'T SAY how many Galaxy S & Galaxy S2 & Galaxy Note it sold!!! Whereas your Apple number is from Apple 1 to 100!!!
* In 2013, Samsung sold 70 million of Galaxy S4. IT DIDN'T SAY how many Galaxy S, S2, S3, Note, Note 2 it sold!!!! Whereas your Apple number is from Apple 1 to 100!!!
* In 2014, Samsung sold 45 million of Galaxy S5. IT DIDN'T SAY how many Galaxy S, S2, S3, S4, Note, Note 2, Note 3 it sold!!!! Whereas your Apple number is from Apple 1 to 100!!!
* In 2015, Samsung sold 45 million of Galaxy S6. IT DIDN'T SAY how many Galaxy S, S2, S3, S4, S5, Note, Note 2, Note 3, Note 4 it sold!!!! Whereas your Apple number is from Apple 1 to 100!!!

@Tomi

I really hope you delete this Wayne Brady Trolling, so we can have a healthy discussion without the need of being like a kindergarten.