Nokia: Dial 'N' for Nostalgia

Recall value: Ajey Mehta, VP and region head, Apac and India, HMD Global

Image: Madhu Kapparath

If Nokia participates in a 10-year challenge based on the market share, it wouldn’t be a good one. Once a global giant, its downfall started about a decade ago, when it began to cede ground to other Android smartphones and Apple: Its market share in 2019 slid to 4.9 percent from 56.2 percent in 2008. 

But Nokia has made it to the list of Most Respected Consumer Tech Brands because of its brand value and people’s trust in it. The nostalgia it evokes has seen it grow in the feature phone segment in the country.

India is the world’s biggest feature phone market and Nokia, according to analysts at Counterpoint, ranks fourth in terms of market share in Q3 2019, after Samsung, Itel and Lava. Its market share grew from 8 percent in Q3 2018 to 12 percent in Q3 2019. Anshika Jain, research analyst at Counterpoint says, “Brands like Nokia and Samsung are seeing an increase in the feature phone market because of a decrease in Reliance Jio’s phones.”

While Nokia wanted to harness the nostalgia quotient by reinventing the Nokia 3310 and Nokia 8110 with 4G-enabled features, “they have not done that well [in 2019], while we saw Nokia 105 do really well”, she adds.

But its success will be limited if Nokia, which was sold to HMD Global in 2016, doesn’t work the smartphone market. Ajey Mehta, vice president and region head, Apac and India, HMD Global, says, “In barely three years since inception, we’ve seen fast change even in this relatively short time.” According to Counterpoint, Nokia’s share in the smartphone segment in Q3 2019 has come down to 1.4 percent from 1.9 percent in Q3 2018.