Andrew Melder

When Nokia first unveiled it’s partnership with Microsoft back in early 2011, I was extremely hopeful for the partnership. Like many others in the industry, I held a soft spot for Nokia and wished that they could have a OS that backed up the quality of their hardware. I also believe in competition and was hoping the partnership would push Windows Phone into a strong competitive standing behind Android and iOS.

However it was not meant to be, and as the release of a new range of Windows Phone devices are prepared for launch, Nokia’s market share and stocks continue to fall. Nokia have not helped their own cause with delayed, inconsistent releases and string of marketing failures. However, I should have seen the writing on the wall back in my last year in telecommunications retail. It was in that year, 2010, that we saw the battle for smartphone success be fought; and Nokia didn’t even fire a shot.

2010 - the year Android secured their place in the market

By early 2010, the mobile world was ready for a true competitor to the iPhone’s dominance. The iPhone 4 wasn’t released until late July/August and the iPhone 3G/3GS were starting to feel a bit long in the tooth. While many Android phones had started to exceed it specs wise, phones pre-Froyo were still a bit unstable and rather intimidating for many not used to technology.

I worked in a suburb in Perth which I like to call Apple country: Claremont. Highly affluent area full of sports stars, business leaders and politicians; Claremont also has a extremely high percentage of Apple users. The Mac sales in the area easily beat the combined PC sales at least 2 to 1. As you can imagine, iPhone was king.

However even in such a Apple dominated area, there was a sense that people were craving something new. After the slightly disappointing 3GS update and after the iOS 4 update crippled many 3G owners phones, customers started to ask about other alternatives available. The first name that almost all of them mentioned in early 2010: Nokia. At that stage the two Android strongholds today, HTC and Samsung, did not have the brand recognition they enjoy currently. HTC was a successful OEM phone maker for other companies but had only just started to develop their own brand in the year prior and Samsung were only known back then for making cheap Nokia knockoffs (surprise) with awful software.

Nokia though had a problem; they had no decent alternative at the time to an iPhone. Their flagship phone in 2010 was the Symbian powered N8 which, while having mighty impressive camera specs and build quality, was slow and unresponsive with a measly app selection. To make matters worse, there was no hope for the future of Symbian as a smartphone platform as Nokia were still trying to develop MeeGo, their now abandoned collaboration for smartphone success with Intel.

But with the release of two phones, Android was able to get in the minds of the average consumer: the HTC Desire and the Samsung Galaxy S. Their success was based on high resolution screens, powerful processors and Android’s growing maturity as a platform. People started to come in asking about HTC and Samsung’s and suddenly Nokia was no longer in the conversation. But these companies almost had no marketing power at the time, whereas Apple’s marketing machine was just getting into full swing for the iPhone 4 release later that year. How did the general public come to know of these Android devices?

The new consumer marketing: Appeal to the geeks, appeal to the public

When I first got involved with mobile phone sales, customers would rely completely on my opinions in regards to what phones to buy. There were no live demo phones back then, only plastic dummy handsets tethered to the walls. However, there is a social change that is present today that wasn’t happening back then: the public acceptance of geek culture. Back then, it still was a social stigma. Nowadays, people openly brag about their geek cred. Everyone has someone they know who will show them their newly purchased phone or gadget and show them all the cool things it can do.

This also extends to online reviews and forums. How many times have you read reviews of a product online before buying it? How many times have you told a non-technology minded friend/family member to do the same before their purchase?

The combination of the two means that the consumer is now much better informed when they go to the store. The general public will now often see the phone of a geek colleague or friend and ask them about it, see what it can do, get an idea on whether they will buy it or not before they even step foot into your store. The influence on the salesperson in purchases is decreasing by the year. Appeal to the geeks, appeal to the people.

By the end of 2010, if people were talking about phones they were only talking about two companies: Samsung and Apple. While you would get the occasional question about others like HTC one thing was clear, Nokia was out of the conversation. The constant delays in the MeeGo platform and the slow death of Symbian meant that they didn’t have a phone that excited the geeks. Even worse, whenever Nokia was mentioned it was more in a reflective tone of devices past, like the brand had already disappeared and no longer exists.

Too little, too late

By the time Nokia had a decent phone + OS combo with it’s Windows Phone 7 devices in mid to late 2011 it was already too late. Android had cemented it’s place alongside iOS as the premier mobile operating systems. Many are already invested too deeply in the OS to change easily now. Windows Phone offered no real advantages to those people apart from a different UI, which isn’t enough for most people to deal with the downsides to Windows Phone (poor app selection, lower spec devices compared to Android counterparts etc).

People may comment that the smartphone market still has room to grow as many people out there still use feature phones, this is true. However when they decide to make the switch they will inevitably ask a technology loving friend or colleague for advice and an opinion. Chances are that opinion is going to be iOS or Android. Nokia and Windows Phone are going to have to come up something incredible to get into the minds of geeks again. Sadly, I don’t see that happening despite the fact Nokia have the capacity to do so.