Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, global CEO of Nokia, world’s largest cellphone company said in New Delhi on Wednesday that inorder to be a global leader in new technologies by offering software and solutions toits 1.5 billion handset users across the world. 

Mr Kallasvuo who is touring India to chair the jury for The Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence says, Software and solutions will be the next frontier as customers now look for more than a handset. 

He said that, “we are investing heavily in services such as navigation, music, media, messaging and internet on mobile phones. None of our competitors have articulated such an entry into the solutions market”. 

Nokia is “taking a keen look” at netbooks — small, light portable computers used for accessing internet that have become immensely popular — but did not confirm if the company will start making them, was also informed by him. 

Mr Kallasvuo taking about consumers stated Indians are rapidly lapping up Nokia’s new applications. India is among the top five countries in terms of downloads from Ovi Store, Nokia’s online software and content store, launched in May 2009 in response to the success of Apple Inc’s App Store. 

 There are also plans to launch a new scheme, ‘Comes With Music’, where customers buying handsets could avail of unlimited music downloads for a year on their mobiles as well as computers with Nokia handsets.

“It was wrong to perceive India as a low-end cellular market: Our high-end handsets are selling nicely here. Smartphones are showing rapid growth”, says he.

Nokia will start microfinance facility in 12 states targeting the women in rural areas. It is a pilot scheme in which mobiles will be available to the poor customers on weekly installments of Rs100 for 25 weeks. This follows the success of the pilot projects in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.  

Mr Kallasvuo said, “We will partner with microfinance companies for this. The pilots were done in the rural areas of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka across 2,500 villages and it received a heartwarming response of over 27,500 applications”. 

Poor monsoons would result in consumers spending less on handsets is no more a point of concern. Presently, rural consumption is the primary growth driver for low and mid-segment handsets and thus says D Sivakumar Nokia India’s managing director, “We don’t think the market will slow down for mobility in rural India. In fact, people will use their phones more as they cut down on travel”. 

India is the second-largest market for Nokia in both sales and volumes after China. As well as the research carried out by National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and Nokia also reveals, communication sector would emerge as the single-largest sector of India’s economy, with a 15.4% share (equivalent to Rs 865,031 crore) of GDP by 2014-15. Moreover, India is the fastest growing market for mobile phones. 

Nokia deals in making cars, bicycles, tires, footwear, cables, televisions, consumer electronics, PCs, generators, TVs plastics, aluminium and chemicals before entering the mobile phone space and had started its business as a paper company.

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Related Books:
Nokia Inc. - A Global Mobile Leader
Modern Nokia Mobile Phone Multicolor Ckts, Servicing Diagram& Repairing
Modern Nokia Camera Phone Service Manual: Model- 7650

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Posted by Naresh Koshti on 21 August, 2009 3:56:22 PM IST #