Why Nokia failed? What can be learnt from Nokia's failure?


One of the giants in mobile manufacturers sold itself to Microsoft. Is it a sign of failure or its inability to maintain a firm. No doubt its a failure to properly manage. So, why do you think Nokia failed? Read on to know the reasons behind failure of Nokia's marketing strategy and what can be learnt from it.

NOKIA was the only brand (popular) I heard when I was ten and that continued for more than half a decade. Such a big market and fame it has in India that time. But what happened to the mobile giant over these five years? What made such a popular manufacturer fail? Where does the failure exist? Is it with their marketing strategy? What really made Nokia rush into such huge losses? Let's have a look.

I would come up with a pretty good example to simplify this failure. In 90's having a telephone is luxury (in India) and in early 20th century mobile phones, often called cell phones took that position. And today having an iPhone or a Blackberry (most of the cases)is Luxury. However, the primary purpose of all those three gadgets is same i.e. communication. Of course, entertainment occupies 50 per cent of its purpose, I'm talking about the primary need. It is the variation shown by those gadgets with time and also advancements in technology make the BIG difference. From a telephone to smartphone world had tasted the benefits and is still expecting even more out of them. This made manufacturers research and explore more and more possible outcomes that could attract their customers; even Nokia is no exception to such practices. Their Lumia phones can be the best example.
Why Nokia failed?

Android weakened roots of Nokia?


Yes, when Android is made Open Source in 2008, brands like Samsung, HTC, and Sony found roots to extend their market. This took Nokia off market in developing countries like India. Samsung's Android phones are user friendly and budget friendly too. Of course, price doesn't matter when one deliver the utmost quality like Apple's Mac books and iDevices. But Nokia's entrance into Windows platform is quite late and also they just tried to expand I mean extend their market. Nokia's products especially Windows smartphone are put up with extraordinary effort and are better than many Android devices. Fact is that Nokia failed to express themselves to customers how better their devices are when compared to its competitors. When there are dozens of competitors out there to beat you, you need to educate and make your target customers understand why should they particularly choose your product. That is what I think made Nokia blow off. Any industry or a firm should not let their competitors over take and this mainly happens due to over confidence. When every manufacturer is busy in making touchscreen mobiles, Nokia felt that touch wouldn't have a scope in the near future but customers overwrote their expectations. Finally, they lost a point that extending one's market is far better than a building trusted customer base, no matter what the product is. And finally gave up for a 7.1 billion to Microsoft.


What can be learnt from Nokia?


So, what can we learn from this unexpected incident of Nokia? It's simple. Any organization either a high profile one or an SMB, besides growing up in technology domain should make their own way in public domain. How? Nokia tried to be unique from the rest manufacturers and adopted Windows platform to express its uniqueness. Well, it's a great move for any organization but it failed to take notice that 'why would a customer choose a $100 mobile when he is getting a better one for just $75?' However, both run on different platforms, what customer pays is same 'MONEY.' A customer always tries to expect the best for a reasonable price and Nokia failed to offer it (especially in markets where Samsung and HTC clicked). Still today there are tons of customers who feel for Nokia's situation and even I am one among them. We cannot blindly blame Nokia and its strategy because it's not that easy to maintain such a trust among customers for more than a decade.

Suggested read: Competition Commission of India approved Microsoft-Nokia deal


Comments

Author: Korra05 Apr 2015 Member Level: Diamond   Points : 3

They should have made Android Phones instead of Windows. Everyone was waiting for an Android smartphone from Nokia but it didn't happened. I remember that Nokia didn't advertise their smartphones. Samsung was heavily advertising its Android smartphones in the form of full page newspaper ads. But Nokia was nowhere there.

Author: Timmappa Kamat05 Apr 2015 Member Level: Gold   Points : 10

Well, major reasons for Nokia's failure are a many, first and foremost being the failure of Symbian as a OS. Though it had a great potential, it could not survive the onslaught of iOS and Android. When everyone else was going Android (it being an open source OS), Nokia lept into the Windows bandwagon. Windows was a new OS back then and was still in its infancy compared to Android or iOS. Had it gone Android way, it would have been able to click. Given the Nokia track record for build quality, Android would have helped Nokia to regain its status.

Secondly, they were late in understanding and keeping in the race. They could not come up with innovations in hardware compared to the competitors. While it was losing the battle at high end to Apple and Samsung, their lower end devices started to get hit by the likes of Micromax, Lava and HTC (which have now begun targeting the bigwigs). Thus Nokia was hit at both ends.

One more point is Nokia failed to create a stable umbrella brand. They tried with N series, C series and then Lumia series, but unlike Apple (which created a successful iPhone brand) and Samsung (which did the same with the Galaxy series) none of them could click. Their branding was not in a position to create anticipation in the market.



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