Early Carrier Support of Nokia HMD Android Smartphones - A crowd-sourced survey of 30 markets (updated list growing: 39 of 46 countries and 79 carriers)

We can publish the first global survey of Nokia HMD Android smartphone marketing support, by the carrier community. This is an informal, unscientific, incomplete survey but enough countries are covered to make a posting about the topic. We can already cover 30 countries with at least some data.

I posted numbers and analysis of the launch of HMD Nokia smartphones a week ago. That blog attracted a lot of comments about local marketing support in many countries, plus comments from a few where the carrier support was lagging. I asked readers to provide more info, and also asked my Twitter followers to join. I also did some digging of various online sources myself. And we now have what I believe is the world's first international survey of the CARRIER SUPPORT of Nokia's smartphone return attempts, via HMD. The results are a mixed bag but there is a lot of promise. I have split the known markets into three groups, first those where all carriers support Nokia brand. Then those where at least one but not all carriers offer the brand. And finally those where as of today, October 31, 2017, no carrier support is seen (but sales are available via other retailers like Amazon or other local retail outlets).

10 OUT OF 46 COUNTRIES WITH FULL CARRIER SUPPORT OF NOKIA SMARTPHONES
In Alphabetical Order

Bulgaria . . . . . . . All Carriers (3 of 3 carriers advertise Nokia, also demand is exceeding supply, source reader 'Vlad')
Czech Rep . . . . . All Carriers (O2, T-Mobile & Vodafone, source reader 'Slavek Cerny')
Finland . . . . . . . . All Carriers (DNA & Elisa advertising, sources reader 'Asko' & Elisa, Telia sells, source Telia website)
Hungary . . . . . . All Carriers (Telenor, Vodafone & T-Mobile are all advertising Nokia, source reader 'zlutor')
Netherlands . . . All Carriers (Nokia 8 is on all Dutch networks, also bus stop advertising, source reader 'Winter')
Russia . . . . . . . . All Carriers (TV ads on air, all carrier shops include Nokia smartphones, source Twitter follower Anton Namestnikov @Annamest)
Serbia . . . . . . . . All Carriers (MTS, VIP & Telenor each carry 2 of the 3 in some mix Nokia 3, 5 & 6; source Nokiamob)
Slovenia . . . . . . All Carriers (All carriers have at least 2 of the models 3, 5, 6, source Twitter follower kpkp @0kp0kp) 
South Africa . . . All Carriers (Vodacom & CellC 3 each, MTN one Nokia model, source Twitter follower 'Ntete Metseka' aka @GoSharpShooter)
Switzerland . . . All Carriers (all major carriers offering Nokia including among their 'brand list' feature, source reader 'Joe Fish')



29 OUT OF 46 COUNTRIES WITH PARTIAL CARRIER SUPPORT OF NOKIA SMARTPHONES
In Alphabetical Order

Australia . . . . . . 1 Carrier (Vodafone carries Nokia 3,5, 6. Source Vodafone)
Austria . . . . . . . . 1 Carrier (A1 advertising Nokia 6, source Twitter follower @Digitreo) 
Belgium . . . . . . . . 2 Carriers (Proximus advertises three models, Telenet one; but Proximus store out of all three but have 3310 in stock, source reader 'luvr')
Chile . . . . . . . . . . 3 Carriers (Entel, Movistar & Wom have Nokia, source reader 'Rino')
Colombia . . . . . . 1 Carrier (Movistar sells Nokia 3. Also retailers selling 5 & 6, source Twitter follower Hernan Ramirez @HernanRamirez)
Croatia . . . . . . . . 2 Carriers (Croatia Telecom & Tele2, + 3rd carrier VIP sells dumbphone 3310, plus largest retailer, sources reader 'robig' & Nokiamob)
Denmark . . . . . . 3 Carriers (Telenor, Yousee & Three sell Nokia, source reader 'Elo Petersen')
France . . . . . . . . 2 Carriers (Bouygues has 3, Orange 2, 5 & 8. (third carrier SFR only does 3310, fourth nothing), also TV ads on air for 8, sources readers 'Phil W' & 'Michel C')
Germany . . . . . . 2 Carriers (T-Mobile has 2 and O2 has 3 models, source reader 'Huber')
Hong Kong . . . . 1 Carrier (CSL plus 3 local retailers advertising Nokia 8, according to my observations)
India . . . . . . . . . 1 Carrier (Vodafone marketing 3, 4 & 6 says iGadgetWoman; plus manufacturing locally, source reader 'John A')
Indonesia . . . . . 1 Carrier (Indosat advertising Nokia 3 & 6, plus biggest local retailer source 'Abdul Muis' local manufacturing, source 'John A')
Ireland . . . . . . . . 2 Carriers (Three & Vodafone, source David Doherty aka @mHealthInsight on Twitter)
Italy . . . . . . . . . . 1 Carrier (TIM has Nokia 5, also one retail channel, sources Twitter follower Luciano Corinti aka @LucianoCorinti & HMD)
Malaysia . . . . . . 1 Carrier (Digi advertising Nokia 3 & 6, source reader 'Abdul Muis')
Mexico . . . . . . . 1 Carrier (Movistar is advertising Nokia 6, via reader 'Rigoberto Calleja') 
New Zealand . . 1 Carrier (Spark carries Nokia 3, 5, 6 & 8. Source Spark)
Nigeria . . . . . . . 1 Carrier (9mobile is advertising Nokia 8, via Twitter follower 'Mister Mobility' aka @moverick)
Norway . . . . . . . 2 Carriers (Telenor & Telia sell Nokia, these 2 carriers (out of 3) control 73% of Norwegian market, sources readers 'Ola' & 'Knut Yrvin')
Pakistan . . . . . . 1 Carrier (Jazz offers Nokia 5 & 6, source Jazz; TV ads on air for Nokia smartphones, source Twitter follower Harry Jarn @h_jarn) 
Poland . . . . . . . 3 Carriers (3 out of 4 carriers selling Nokia, heavily advertised. Source reader 'Mike')
Portugal . . . . . . 2 Carriers (NOS & Vodafone have Nokia 3, 5 & 8 models, source reader 'Pedro')
Romania . . . . . . 3 Carriers (Vodafone, Orange & Telekom each carry Nokia, sources Vodafone & reader 'Romania')
Spain . . . . . . . . 3 Carriers (3 of 4 carriers are advertising Nokia 3, source reader 'Luis Calvo')
Sweden . . . . . . . 2 Carriers (Telia and Telenor selling Nokia, also Elgiganten the largest retailer has it plus other retailers source reader 'John A')
Taiwan . . . . . . . 1 Carrier (Far EasTone Telecom, source reader 'zmx')
Turkey . . . . . . . 1 Carrier (Vodafone running ads for Nokia, source reader 'John A')
UAE . . . . . . . . . 1 Carrier (Etisalat has 3 Nokia models, source reader 'Abdul Muis')
UK . . . . . . . . . . 3 Carriers (EE, Virgin & Vodafone sell, also largest retailer Carphone Warehouse, sources reader 'Mart' and Android Authority)

7 OUT OF 46 COUNTRIES WITH NO CARRIER SUPPORT YET
Argentina . . . . No Carriers (no carriers yet, by my survey of websites of major Argentinian carriers)
Brazil . . . . . . . . No Carriers (no carriers yet, source reader 'Joe Fish')
Canada . . . . . . No Carriers (no carriers, avail on Amazon, source reader 'Wayne Borean')
China . . . . . . . . No Carriers (several retail channels, sources HMD & reader 'John A')
Nepal . . . . . . . . No Carriers (but several independent retailers selling Nokia locally, source Twitter follower Aatish Neupane @aatishnn)
Thailand . . . . . . No Carriers (no carriers, retailer Jaymart sells it, by my observation)
USA . . . . . . . . . No Carriers (no carriers, several retail channels, sources readers 'Jim Glue' and 'John A')


ABOVE listing is crowd-sourced by readers of CDB blog and my Twitter followers. This listing MAY BE freely shared in any media and in any way you want, without any further permissions from me or this blog. Please indicate the DATE you saw the data, as this listing will likely grow over time, with more input from readers and Twitter followers, so your listing has a 'time stamp' on it if you publish it. I'd appreciate a link to this blog if you publish to an online source.In


In total, currently (as of 31 Oct)  79 carriers support Nokia HMD relaunch by at least selling at least one Nokia branded smartphone handset. Others in the list go much further, selling multiple handsets, marketing them prominently on their website front page or the top of their smartphone page; and some have done actual paid advertising already to support Nokia smartphone sales the most aggressive have done TV advertising.

The geographic footprint of HMD's effort (39 of 46 countries as of 31 Oct) now spans all 6 inhabited continents by geographic regions (when Mexico is counted as part of the 'North American' geographic continent) but by more common convention, Mexico is counted as part of the cultural region of 'Latin America' and by that method, HMD is in five geographic 'continental' regions out of six. By the more handset-relevant measure of the 8 common regions often measured, that separates some areas like Eastern Europe and the Middle East, out of Europe and Africa/Asia (but some will lump Middle East WITH Africa); and possibly also separates China and Emerging Asia from rich Asia but often then adds Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia etc to 'Industrialized APAC') - if we go by the 8 regions I track in my Almanac and Phone Book series, then HMD has now reach into 7 of the 8 regions with only the USA-Canada North America part missing (as I count Mexico into LatAm). But my 'Emerging Asia' includes the single largest market China, which now some analysts separate out of the Emerging Asia part. If you count that way (eg 9 regions) then HMD has so far reached 7 of 9 regions.


This is clearly a crowd-sourced listing. I warmly welcome any additions corrections and further info that anyone can offer. Please feel free to post into comments and I will update the listing, or you can send me info via Twitter where I am @tomiahonen or my email which is tomi at tomiahonen dot com. I will be most happy to include your name as a contributor to this listing.

So far my thoughts of the sampling, 39 of 46 countries sampled have at least one carrier. And in 10 of 46 countries, all carriers already support Nokia smartphone sales. Considering that HMD only started (outside of China) in June this is a VERY solid start. Several of the world's largest handset markets have carrier support already including India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Mexico, Turkey and Germany. Yes, this is a good start. Go get them HMD, good luck! Lykkyä tykö!

(This blog was originally posted on 24 October. I closed the updating of this blog effective end of October 31, 2017 so that we will have a 'time stamp' after reasonable time to get reader contributions (one week). I will take more comments yes, but I will no longer update the listing, so that this becomes our first benchmark. I will start a new blog that collects more countries and carriers, for the month of November.)

Comments

[Jim Glue]

First it was supposed to be by the end of October. That came and went.

[Phil W]

Well it was available for beta testers in October and the beta testing programme has ended for the 8. Not sure if it is there for the other handsets. One report does suggest that both HMD and Samsung will not release the official version until the new year. I'd rather it was delayed, than released in an unstable form, though.

[Jim Glue]

Congrats on HMD/Foxconn releasing the Oreo update for their flagship Nokia 8. Now on to the UNPRECEDENTED task of putting out a new Android version on a budget phone. As promised by HMD.

[Nokipiika]

Nokia 6 and 5 next:
https://twitter.com/sarvikas/status/934040267505758208

[SonyFanboi]

And it is Sony that leads in releasing Oreo updates. It has already updated 4 models:
- Xperia X Performance
- Xperia XZ Premiumin
- Xperia XZ
- Xperia XZs

And in addition to that Sony has launched two models that were shipped with Oreo to begin with (Hello HMD and Nokia 7), those are:
- Xperia XZ1
- Xperia XZ1 Compact

If HMD updates all five Nokia models they currently have TOMORROW, they're still one model short on what Sony already has done.
Checkmate.

[Phil W]

So? It's not a race. It's just important it's done in a timely manner.

[Phil W]

I guess what I meant to say was that it's good that Sony have done this, well done to them, but it doesn't matter that they beat HMD to it. What does matter is that HMD are seen to be living up to their own promises and they seem to be doing just that at the moment.

[Jim Glue]

yes....the track record is piss poor across the Android manufacturers. Let's not forget that in addition to Sony...the carriers have do their own updates to the Android code unless you are using an unlocked phone.

Let's hope that the following three years it's going to take for Android Oreo to become the standard commercial Android....will be the last that this is a big issue.

With Android 8, should be better

[b]

@Jim

Updating the phone OS does not correlate with the worldwide smartphone market share (e.g. Samsung is number one and it is not that good at updating Android on its phone whilst Apple is number 2 and falling but does a pretty good job at updating its iOS). Therefore it is safe to assume that it is a non-issue for the most of the smartphone buyers/owners. It is just a market strategy based on creating needs thru fear and Apple loves to use it.

[Phil W]

It's only important if you want to use the latest features added in the update. Some people will be very keen, others won't give a toss.

It's much more important to rolling out the security updates as soon as possible. Android OEMs haven't been good at this in the past. HMD have been excellent at this (personal experience) and there are encouraging signs that the other OEMs are beginning to take this seriously as well.

[Gulfam Ahmed]

The software is an important part, and we think the Nokia 5.1 wins here. This is because the Nokia 5.1 is an Android One phone
and comes with stock Android 8.1 Oreo. The Vivo Y81 also runs Android 8.1 Oreo, but comes with the FunTouch OS UI. Same is the story with the Honor 9 Lite, which runs Android 8.0 Oreo with EMUI on top.

[https://youmobile.com.pk/brands/7/Nokia-mobile-prices-in-Pakistan]

The software is an important part, and we think the Nokia 5.1 wins here. This is because the Nokia 5.1 is an Android One phone and comes with stock Android 8.1 Oreo. The Vivo Y81 also runs Android 8.1 Oreo, but comes with the FunTouch OS UI. Same is the story with the Honor 9 Lite, which runs Android 8.0 Oreo with EMUI on top.