Nokai Company Success

Name:

Instructor`s name:

Institution:

Date:

NOKIA COMPANY SUCCESS

Introduction

Nokia Corporation boasts of being the world`s most prominent manufacturer of mobile phones. The Company owns approximately 27 percent of the world`s market share. This is far above the next contender, which owns approximately 17 percent of the world`s market share. Most of the Company`s net sales, approximately 66.7 percent, are achieved through the Nokia Mobile business group. However, the Company has another principal business group, Nokia Networks, which accounts for approximately 30 percent of the Company`s net sales.

Company History

In 1865, Nokia Company was founded in central Finland by Fredrik Idestam and Leo Mechelin as a maker of paper and pulp. A couple of years after World War II the Company expanded and attained a stellar role in as far as the trade between Finland and other countries is concerned.

In 1967, the Finnish government advocated for the conflation of Nokia Company with two underachieving Finnish firms: Finnish Cable Works and Finnish Rubber Works. This union resulted into the formation of Nokia Corporation. Nokia Corporation broadened its scope of operation and started dealing in electronics, rubber footwear, integrated cable operations and tires. Moreover, in late 1967 Nokia established a special division which was mandated with the task of developing designs and manufacturing capabilities in industrial automation, communication systems and data processing (Nokia Corporation).

In 1981, Nokia played a central role in the formation of an international cellular system, the Nordic Mobile Network, which was the first one of its kind.

In 1982, Nokia acquired Mobira which eventually became the Nokia Mobile Phones Division.

In 1986, Nokia introduced its first mobile phone to the international market and by 1993 the Company had made groundbreaking success in the development of a digital cellular phone which it immediately introduced into both the local and the international market.

In 1998, Nokia defeated Motorola and became the world`s best manufacturer of mobile phones

Company Products

Through its business group, Nokia Networks, the Company has been able to supply the substructure for mobile, broadband, fixed and Internet Protocol networks to more than 130 countries. Recently, Nokia teamed up with Microsoft to work on a global ecosystem that can be used in place of Android and iOS. Courtesy of this mergence, the Company has been able to produce a new range of smartphones which use the Windows platform.

Competitors

Over the years, the competition for the available market has heightened tremendously. Courtesy of this competition, speedy changes have been witnessed not only in the technology that is used in the production process but also in the consumer predilections. Nokia faces competition from other companies such as: Samsung Group; Alcatel; Philips Electronics; Ericsson; Siemens; Lucent Technologies Inc.; Motorola, Inc.; NEC Corporation; Pioneer Corporation; Qualcomm Incorporated; Robert Bosch Corporation; Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.; Sony Corporation and so on.

Company`s Phone Evolution

The modern day Nokia mobile phones were preceded by telephones which were driven by the OG technologies. In 1966, Nokia joined forces with Salora Oy and embarked on developing a car based mobile telephone system which was presented to the commercial market in 1971.

 Nokia merged with Salora in 1979 to form Mobira which later on developed phones for Nordic Mobile Telephone network. And in 1981, Nokia played a central role in the formation the first automatic cell phones.

In 1984 Mobira launched the Mobira Talkman which became the world`s first transportable phone. It weighed approximately 5 kilograms. The Mobira Cityman  900 was the first handheld mobile phone in the world and it was introduced by Nokia in the year 1987. It weighed approximately 800 grams.

Nokia launched the world`s first GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) phone (Nokia 1011) in 1992. In 1994, the Company proceeded to launch the Nokia 2100 series which had the characteristic Nokia ringtone.

In 2003, Nokia launched the Nokia 1100 which still holds the record of being the most bought mobile phone. Installed in this phone was the N-Gage console which enabled people to use the phone not only for communication purposes but for gaming as well. As a result of incorporating the gaming console in the manufacture of this phone, the Company`s production costs skyrocketed.

Nokia launched the X6 and the X3 in 2009. These phones were different from all the other phones which had ever been produced by the Company since they were touch screen phones driven by the Symbian operating system. Moreover, they were optimized for social networking and playing music. In 2012, Nokia introduced a new brand of phones, the Asha Range. These phones were capable of browsing the internet at faster speeds since they were fitted with a cloud accelerated Nokia browser.

Undoubtedly, Nokia`s smartphone scheme was a fundamental change for the Company which set the termination of an epoch. The Company was coerced to revise its strategies upon citing declivity in its share in the market courtesy of the very intense competition that was emanating from its rivals who had already set foot in the ‘smartphone space’.

Before February 11th 2012, Nokia`s intention with regards to its smartphones was to incorporate the MeeGo and Symbian platforms. The Company purported to link these two platforms using Ovi as the service layer and Qt as the common developer environment. The Company would use MeeGo for its high end devices whereas the Symbian platform would be used in everything else. In addition to that, the Company was banking on the presumption that gradually the Symbian platform would ground down, owing to the high cost of installing it in new hardware, and be entirely replaced by the MeeGo platform (Fox).

Qt formed a perfect cross platform development framework but in order for it to be of any usefulness, both the Symbian platform and the MeeGo platform had to be in existence. This posed a challenge to the Company since the MeeGo platform had not yet been fully developed. The Company was therefore forced to consider another platform since waiting for MeeGo to be fully developed would result into more losses.

Nokia proceeded to introduce another platform after partnering with Microsoft which resulted in to the emergence of Windows Phone. Courtesy of the Windows Phone, Nokia is able to distinguish its devices from the devices of its rivals which are powered by iOS and Android.   Windows Phone puts up a modern UX with a good inherent operating system but it has some significant faults in its features. This has posed to be a deterrent to the Company`s potential customers.