Ever heard getting a luxury Helicopter ride when you buy a phone , what about going around with your friends on a BMW ride or how about paying Toll for about 15,000 cars ( even if the drivers are not customers )  this and there are many other things which Nokia India is doing to launch the Lumia 800 in India.

According to Economic Times of India , Nokia India has planned the following events upon launch of Nokia Lumia on 16th Dec 2011 for their Amazing Everyday events

New Delhi

• No toll for cars crossing  Delhi-Noida Toll Plaza between 8:30 to 10am
• Musical Concert by Leading Artists
• Blue Santas distributing chocolates and coupons at malls
• Artificial Snow Zone at PVR
• Lucky Draws at F-Bar with winners to get Lumia 800

Bangalore / Chennai and Hyderabad

• 30 Minutes Luxury Ride in a Helicopter over Bangalore
• Customers will be picked by either BMW or Mercedes for the ride
• Drive around in a BMW with friends
• Candle Light Dinner for two followed by  Dance Class
• Impromptu Cricket with Cricket celebrities
• Para Sailing Lessons and Catamaran ride with friends and family with dinner

Mumbai

• Dance performances by foreign troupes
• Free Food and Drinks at PCR

Kolkata

• Winter Wonderland with artificial Snow at Salt Lake

If that is not enough , Sania Mirza , the Indian Tennis star was handing out phones Ambience Mall in New Delhi

image credit -  ZOMG

It was not only the external customers Nokia India was targeting for their Lumia range, for their employees , to create all the hype and make “Amazing Everyday “ for them starting from 12th t- 16th Dec

On WOW Monday ,  there was a giant life size Lumia in office which was giving out chocolates , stickers and Rubik Cubes upon tapping .

Tuesday brought another surprise for them with Kinetic Tuesday theme , complete with scooties to have fun rides on.

Surprise Wednesday brought treasure hunting for magic boxes and

Foottapping Thursday was all about dancing and having fun.

and today , Friday the 16th office will be closed for everyone to be out in the market and enjoy the big launch day and also make Amazing Everyday for their customers too.

In phase two launch also expect Nokia Lumia branding on cars , Taxis and even planes , hey if we can have an Angry Bird on a plane why not a phone , remember India had been one of the countries of the world where you can buy a phone off the trunk of a Rolls Royce. Notice the Nokia Logo on the side  

Clinton Jeff just informed on his post that Nokia Lumia is available in India for a wallet squeezing INR 29,999 , i.e. Euro 437 or USD 586 or for me in Pakistan Rs 52,400.

For Rs 52,400 my options in Pakistan are to get a Samsung Galaxy S2 for just Rs 46,000 or USD 514 , for a couple of extra thousand I can get a Samsung Galaxy Note for Rs 56,000 or I can simply go for a HTC HD7 Windows Phone for just Rs 30,000 and wait for Nokia Lumia 900 t0 launch .

What do you think will you fork out that much dough for a phone for which a better replacements is just around the corner or you’ll wait out a little.

Remember with Nokia early adopters always gets to pay much higher then followers a couple of months later.

Pakistan , a country of 170 million people and 97 million mobile phone connections , a country where mobile phones are as essential as food and everywhere and Five cellular companies fighting for business and  competition had made calling rates in Pakistan as one of the most inexpensive in the world and bringing down the ARPU of these companies . 

To cover up the ROI and make some profits , these companies are working towards offering value added services other than mobile telephony and SMS  and this is where Nokia have missed the boat in Pakistan . 

Nokia Money

When I discussed with Nokia bigwigs at Mobile World Congress , I was told launching Mobile Money in Pakistan is not that easy , it needs a full backup support , infra structure and regulatory requiremets  .  A fortnight  after that Telenor Pakistan in collaboration with Tameer microfinance bank , launched Easy Paisa Mobile Bank System in Pakistan , which opens bank account for the unbanked ( the market which Nokia is planning to exploit ) which they can operate through their mobile phones.

When I asked  General Manager Nokia at the recent Nokia Emerging Market Handset launch about launching Nokia Money in Pakistan , I was told they are in discussion with a bank and going through regulations .

Nokia Life Tools

Again at MWC 2010 , when I asked about launch of Nokia Life Tools in Pakistan , I was told infra structure and data collection are major hindrances and after India and Indonesia , China is the next targeted market with another one ( probably Brazil ) to follow .  Although Pakistan is on Nokia’s radar , it’s way below the big markets .  Here comes another indigenous solution , Mobilink Kisan (Farmer)  Service ,a IVR based service which provides farmers with advice on harvesting matters , prices and weather information .

Mobilink is also offering Word a Day offers , Mobile Advertising ( posting ads on a mobile portal)  , Word Translation services , while Telenor is offering Mobile Doctor and other services as their value added IVT services . 

What it means for Nokia

The introduction of value added services by the cellular companies offers both advantages and disadvantages for Nokia .

The benefits for Nokia is when they will introduce their services in Pakistan , the market will already be developed and they don’t have to explain it to the people , but the greater disadvantage for Nokia is that they will be the follower not the innovator and converting people from their existing and trusted service will be difficult  . Although Nokia can bring out interoperability that as with Telenor Easy Paisa , only Telenor users can use it , but with Nokia Money , it could be used on Telenor , Warid , Mobilink , UFone and Zong . 

The only big question which remains is when Nokia will  bring out these services in Pakistan , as the competition is not sitting still , all the cellular companies are working on one form of service or other and with Warid already owning two banks , Orascom /  Mobilink already bid for Royal Bank of Scotland’s Pakistan oepration and Zong /  China Mobile also eyeing a bank , soon Mobile Money will be a commodity not exclusive service and Nokia will have a hard time cracking the market.

SenseApplied advice to Nokia is , don’t take Pakistan as the small country in the back waters , we are standing tall in the fore front of technology , we may have the very low literacy rate but we are the 4th largest user of SMS service in the world.  People are becoming literate in an alternate way , through mobile phones , they can operate it’s menu and can write sms in Roman Urdu ( Urdu written in English characters )  , now it’s all up to Nokia  how quick they react to cover Pakistan before the cellular companies take it all .

At the Mobile World Congress- Barcelona where at one end , the greatest names in Mobile world were displaying their wares , Nokia talking about their upcoming OS MeeGo in collaboration in Intel’s Moblin , Samsung showing Wave with their Bada platform, Sony Ericsson beaten but not surrendered had Vivaz and Xperia X10 Pro and Mini on display and LG was picketing are you a Mini outside the venue showing their LG Mini and the God Father of technology Eric Schmidt starting his presentation with “ The Future is Mobile “ on the other hand there were a handful of companies working in background making dreams of all the bigwigs a reality .

How mighty all these companies are, fighting at the top of the Pyramid where the money and profits but low volumes lie, companies are fast realizing that it’s the bottom of the pyramid they should be worried about and target as these consumers are likely to improve their lifestyle and disposable income with availability of inexpensive reliable communications and tapping them now means a brand loyal customer base which will upgrade to the same brand which helped them grow in social status .

This is the market of the next billion which mobile companies are effectively targeting through every mean possible .

To lure this billion people market , handset manufacturers like Nokia are shifting to services industry by offering life improvement services in selected markets such Life Tools , an application which is keeping farmers in India abreast with the changing market trend updating them with crop prices , Urea and Seed prices , current market conditions , weather conditions along with Bollywood entertainment and education them by featuring word of the day and all this available at the nominal cost of USD 1 per month .

It’s not only the services , sturdy mobile phones with dust resistant coatings , scratch resistant screens , longer battery life , faster charging times , builtin torch and multiple phonebooks and credit management applications are attracting the customers to have one phone for the whole family .

As per GSM Association : A 10% increase in a country’s mobile penetration results in a 1.2% increase in GDP.”

But however the great services and phones Nokia and likes provide to consumers , they are constrained by one thing , GSM Signal availability .

Here comes companies like VNL , an Indian outfit with offices in Sweden , VNL was recently awarded Green Mobile Award for Best Green Product / Initiative at World Mobile Congress 2010 , the company provide world’s first GSM base stations running on solar power .

These base stations , titled WorldGSM , have been designed from scratch to bring communication to the masses where traditional GSM networks cannot reach .

Using nominal power at 100 W per station , powered by the sun , fully weather proof and easy to erect by regular technical personell , this mictotelecom technology is the key to bring enhance the lifestyle of the rural areas of the world and bring the people spread across the country closer.

The whole setup can be sent on two cart / containers and could even be erected by the unskilled field staff which cannot even read or write . With no ancillary requirements like generators and Air conditioning , the equipment is simple plug it , point it south and play .

This technology work as a GSM Signal repeater , with a number of Village Sites and Rural Sites enhancing the reach of the main GSM network

For Telecom industry in Pakistan , worried about low ARPUs , this technology is near Zero maintenance , with remote software updating and swap and run repairs.

As per an estimation, In India alone , Telecom companies burnt 1.8 billion litres of diesel to power their cell sites in one year , with this technology , the enhanced range and reach can be achieved without high maintenance costs associated with Generators , Air-conditioning and Equipment and provide a Green and Efficient way to cover the rural areas where the next billion mobile customers reside .

Apple knows how to create a hype and what better way to further enhance it by adding iPAD into   annual Grammys when Stephen Colbert took one out present Song of the Year Nominees and with the largest viewership ever Apple got to show the iPAD to 25.8 million viewers at the moment when all eyes were glued to the screen

Stephen later asked “ Honey did I look cool with it “ and the response was well I’ll let the snap do the talking

Nokia is not far behind , not having a firm footing in America , they did sponsored the largest Indian Movie Award Show – 16th Annual Star Screen Awards showcasing Indian Movie idols like Amitabh Bachan , Shahrukh Khan etc etc  with viewership across India and Pakistan .

At CES 2010 Keynote Address , Olli Pekka – CEO Nokia announced the Nokia Growth Economy Challenge in which the winner will be able to secure $ 1,000,000 from Nokia to make the idea viable .

Getting jumpy at the idea , just wait , Nokia is not going to give the million bucks to anyone whose application can make Nokia some money but keeping up with their commitment to the emerging economies and also develop a billion loyal Nokia  customers from the slums of India , Grasslands of Africa and Brazil and the like , Nokia wants the idea to meet the following criteria

The winning proposal in the Growth Economy Venture Challenge will meet the following criteria:

• It must include a clear mission statement; and provide a product or service plan that will undeniably raise the standard of living, and/or enhance the lives of people living in emerging market countries today.
• The initial target market must be located in a region with per capita income significantly lower than what is found in industrialized nations today (e.g., sub-$5 per day).
• It must include a viable business model that has a high likelihood of providing a strong return on investment for the venture funding provided.

It has to be for the betterment of the people in low income economies which will increase their livelihood and be also viable business investment with concrete ROI,  the idea is not limited to software alone but hardware or a new service could also be entered .

As Olli Pekka Said in his Keynote address

"We are challenging developers and innovators around the world to take action. We want you to come up with new and innovative ways to help people and promote upward mobility around the world."

Nokia has one shrewd business opportunity ,  first One Million bucks will ensure plenty of ideas to be submitted as the contest is open all over the world and last year alone some 1700 applications were submitted from 85 countries in Calling All Innovators , these entries will not be discarded but many will be made part of OVI Store so OVI Store content will increase

The ideas will generate the hype and although the runner ups may not get the million bucks as investment , Nokia can also use the ideas to run parallel programs

The selected idea will be for the low income families /  economies where in some places like India , Nokia is synonymous to a cellphone , using the idea and investing upon it , Nokia is developing a loyal customer base on whose well being Nokia is working and when they upgrade , the share of mind will be Nokia .

So Nokia is thinking 10 years ahead and how to maintain it’s dominance till 2020 by than some more ideas will come to then but till than WHERE IS YOUR IDEA ??

If you think you can make Nokia invest in you go to  http://www.callingallinnovators.com/venture_challenge.aspx for entry form and other details

While at the CES 2010 show at Las Vegas , companies were showing their mightiest and greatest , a mighty great company’s CEO was showing their bottom line device at his Key Note address .

It was Nokia’s CEO Mr Olli Pekka showing Nokia 1661 a $32.00 phone meant for emerging markets .

Why at an event where the companies spent a huge amount to show their prototypes and upcoming technologies costing thousands of dollars someone will choose to show the lowest category of device at an event like the Keynote ?

Answer simply is commitment to be a true Global company .  Sure Nokia has it’s high end devices as N900 , N86 , X6 on display at their booth but Nokia’s ambition is not to make the next $100 million but how to make the next billion mobile users use their devices . 

Why this strategy ? 

IF we look at Nokia’s portfolio , Nokia’s high end devices are facing stiff competition from Apple , HTC ( including Google’s Nexus One )  RIM and Samsung , everyone is up for $300 plus devices to make a killing in profit but the market on the top is small .  On the bottom of the pyramid lies the Taxi Drivers in India and Pakistan ,  Factory Workers in China and Farmers in Indonesia , India , Brazil and Africa for whom , a phone which can make calls , send and receive SMS , have a torch and FM Radio and can be used in a local language is most advanced piece of technology around which their universe revolves and these consumers are not in millions but billions in number .

This is the market Nokia is tapping with low end phones like 1661 ,  other companies can sell a million phones at $300 each and Nokia can sell a couple of hundred million phones at $32 each , with capacity of 19 phones per second , meeting this goal is not difficult for Nokia .

Again low quantity ,  high profits isn’t that the ideal business model ?  what Nokia will make selling a hundred million phones others can make selling a million phones –

With this strategy Nokia is not planning for today but for the future  .  In a village where multiple users use the same phone , when individuals go for their own phone , they will buy a Nokia , for this market a reliable brand matters as $32 or above could mean a month’s pay for some and they want to make the investment with which they are familiar and have trust on .   The $32 phone user will eventually upgrade as their livelihood increases ironically because of the phone and there is a fair enough chance that the next phone will be again a Nokia. 

So Nokia has a long term plan , first go for the maximum market share at the bottom , create a user base of loyal customers among the emerging markets which on betterment of their lively hood will  upgrade to another Nokia .  The large user base will increase brand recognition which will eventually means high end customer will also be attracted towards it .

But phone is not the only medium to attract customers , while Nokia is aiming the lower segment there also lies Samsung ,  LG and numerous Chinese manufacturers which could be cheaper than Nokia and has plenty of bells and whistles , though not as comparable in quality as a Nokia .

To counter them , Nokia is also offering services in emerging markets like Nokia Life Tools in India and Indonesia and Nokia Tej in India with OVI Services and upcoming Nokia Money

The added advantage of Life Tools is the main attraction for farmers in India and Indonesia towards a Nokia , a builtin Application in selected Nokia models and for a low affordable monthly fee , they can access market information , weather conditions , entertainment news ( very big in India where some Bollywood idols are demi gods for many ) and education yes ,a unique approach of one word a day to teach English to farmers in rural India and all the services available in multiple regional languages make it an attractive and useful tool for them .

With Nokia Money , Nokia is again targeting the low end market providing them a medium have a bank account without all the hassles and intimidations of going to the bank .  With Nokia Money , a Taxi Driver in India can deposit his daily income to his Nokia Money account , transfer it immediately to his family back in the village through his phone , can accept payments via phone all without worries of his money being lost or stolen with the security of  his phone .

With Nokia Tej , Nokia has provided a useful order tracking system to middle class businessman in India where from placing an order to order dispatch all activities can be done on phone via SMS or installed application sans any paper work and much more quickly than before.

Nokia’s vision is to be the first device on which the masses of the world access the internet and much of it’s low end devices are internet ready and with builtin database for operator settings as simple as plugging in the SIM Card and using the net which is extremely useful for businessman looking for new leads to student needing help for their assignments and keeping in touch with their piers through Facebook and Twitter.

Through it’s OVI Services , Nokia is also helping the low end of the market without access to internet and a a computer to have an email account through OVI Mail , a 1GB free email account ,  which has seen creation of 5 million email accounts in the first year of it’s launch which is more than first year figures of Yahoo , Hotmail and Gmail combined. With Ovi Mail , Nokia has proved that internet and email is not only in the domain of high end phone users like E Series devices , many low end S40 phones like Nokia 2700 has the buitin application to create and access the OVI mail account directly from the phone,  infact S40 devices were the first to get the OVI Mail application with S60 devices following much later .

Nokia is not all serious business applications for the users , entertainment is part of a common man’s life too , in terms of hardware , many low end Nokia phones now come with FM Radio and Nokia 5080 even features a builtin FM Anteena so no need for head phones to listen to FM Radio as with all other models including Nokia’s own high end models such as E72 and N 97 Mini and N900 .  In terms of services with OVI Share and OVI Music Nokia has provided a platform for the common man to share his media and photos and be able to download and listen to music while on the move.

Nokia is not stopping here , in software and services industry it’s very easy to replicate one’s success and although other phone manufacturers are no where near Nokia is terms of services but trying to work things out as Samsung has started their online store for apps and movies , for the future Nokia has set aside $1,000,000 ( 1 million USD )  in the first “ Nokia Growth Economy Venture Challenge “  in which Nokia will invest One Million Dollars to make an idea meant to promote mobility and improvement in life at the developing /  emerging economies where the average income of people is less than $5.00 a day .

The competition is aimed at all the developers and with figures like 300,000 developers in China alone , expect a large number of creative entries and a stiff competition meant for the betterment of the world.

Will all these technolgies and announcements Nokia has just scratched the surface on what they have in store for us , they got cultural anthropologists on their board like John Chipchase , whose job and passion is to see how people make use of their phones , learn from them , get ideas derived from real world usage and develop them for future use ranging from now to the next 15 years , for those waiting to see what else Nokia hold in store , in words of OPK ,  “  The exciting thing is we’ve only just begun “ .

Nokia is feeling the economic slump and to beat their rivals is coming up with a new scheme for one of the world’s most populous country India selling Nokia phones at Rs 100 per month ( sorry E71 and N97 not included ) . The scheme is announced in conjunction with Nokia’s CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo’s India tour to chair the jury for Economic Times Award For Corporate Excellence.

He says that India is proving to be a big market for Nokia where Nokia commands more than 60 % of the market of more than 450 million users with 10 % growth and India stands among the top Five Markets in OVI Store Download since May ’09 and soon be part of‘ Nokia’s ‘ Comes with Music ‘ markets , a all you can download music store . He has further added that it was wrong for Nokia to think India as a lower segment cellphone market and the high-end phones are selling ‘nicely’ and smartphone segment shows a rapid growth

It’s not the  rich Nokia is after , India comprises of a large portion of poor consumers and Nokia is not ignoring them too by offering the cell phones at Rs 100 a month . They have already ran the pilot program at Karnataka and Andhra Pardesh and 12 new states will be further added . The payback period will be more than 25 weeks but the rate of finance is not known . The pilot had been a success and in the 2500 villages the test was run over 27,500 applications had been received.

Given the target market of ‘poor consumers’ the phone range will comprise of Nokia 1xxx , 2xxx and maybe 3xxx phones as Rural segment had been the main growth sector for Nokia’s low and mid-range phones.

Nokia is targeting that the current economic conditions will fuel the mobile sector growth as people will travel less and make use of more communications to compensate for that . Nokia has also launched their Life Tools program in India giving Rural area farmers , real time rates of grain , fertilizers and market situation beside providing entertainment and education via the low end handsets .

Will we see a scheme like this in Pakistan , I don’t think so Pakistan is too small a market for Nokia and credit market may prove to be too volatile for Nokia but they can launch handsets in conjunction with Carriers which are now teeming up with Chinese to offer low price handsets .  Nokia can also team up with Credit Card companies to offer similar schemes to Pakistani consumer or even a Cash for Clunkers program for Cell Phones through their authorized dealers.

According to Nokia India in 3 months of it’s launch Indian Consumers have purchased 58,000 units of Nokia 5800 Express Music

“The 5800 model is indeed doing well in India. This testifies Indian consumers value innovation even when the economy slows down,” said a Nokia India spokeswoman.

Cool 58,000 – 5800s  I like the figures , what’s in store for Pakistan we’ll see in a few days

Farhan

Nokia has just announced their upcoming Joint Venture with Hindustan Computers Limited to give the Indian Consumers an easy access to mobile entertainment and other Value Added Services .

The JV will be in full effect once the regulatory approvals are met .

India has always been a lucrative market with it’s huge customer base with increasing disposable income and growing need for newer technologies and entertainment by the masses .

India is Nokia’s second largest market after China and Nokia already has it’s largest  manufacturing plant ( in terms of employee strength ) based at Nokia Telecom Park in Chennai  which with over 8000 workers and has already produced 200 million handsets in 3 years for the domestic and export markets.  ( Source Hindu Business Line ), where else Nokia just announced their Hungary factory had produced their 500 millionth phone since 1999 , so Chennai is all set to take over Komarom plant’s crown in coming years .

For Mr D. Shiva Kumar -  VP and Managing Director Nokia India “An important part of our future distribution strategies in India is that we want to ensure that our value added services and entertainment offerings are readily available to all consumers,”  “This arrangement is a natural continuation of our long term collaboration with HCL in India.”

Mr. Ajai Chowdhry, founder, Chairman and CEO of HCL Infosystems, added: “We are excited about this opportunity as we believe it brings further value to our customers and Indian consumers in general by offering seamless mobile value added services and entertainment content.”

I’m looking positively towards this JV as this will not only give Nokia an edge over it’s competitors but with always available offerings they can also increase revenue from non handset sales .

Wishing best of luck to Nokia

Farhan