Nokia Marketing Plan Project

NOKIA MARKETING PLAN PROJECT

INTRODUCTION

Nokia was founded in 1865 as a paper mill in Finland. It went on to establish it's self as a renowned mobile phone manufacturer and one of the most powerful brands in the world. In 1992 Nokia shifted its focus to primarily telecommunications and appointed Jorma Ollila as its CEO. Six years later in 1998 Nokia had established it's self as the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer with a turnover of 31 billion.

In 2006, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo replaced Jorma Ollila as the CEO, but was not able to reverse the decline of Nokia's market share especially in the high end segment. Competitors like Apple, Blackberry, HTC, Samsung, and phones using Google's Android operating system captured market share from Nokia at an alarmingly increasing rate. By the end of 2010 Android was already the most widespread smart phone operating system in the world and Nokia's market share in the smart phone segment had declined from 38 to 31 percent in one year (Sokala).

In September 2010, the appointment of the Canadian Stephen Elop as the new CEO of Nokia aroused adversarial feelings among people since Elop became Nokia's first CEO not to originate from Finland. Elop was hired to change the course of Nokia and to stop the declining trend in Nokia's global market share especially in the smart phone segment. The first major decision was to start extensive cooperation with Microsoft in February 2011.

VISION AND STRATEGY

Nokia's mission is simple: Connecting People and their goal is to build great mobile products that enable billions of people worldwide to enjoy more of what life has to offer. Nokia's challenge is to achieve this in an increasingly dynamic and competitive environment. (Nokia Corporation)

DEMOGRAPHICS

Nokia is a multinational company headquartered in Finland. It employs a total of 123,553 people worldwide and sells its products in over 160 countries. Nokia has Research & Development Departments in 16 countries with 17,196 employees. Its major markets are in China, India and UK. From 2008-09, Nokia's market share increased in China but decreased in India and UK. The reason for its declining market shares is possibly due to increase in competitors in India and the markets already being saturated in UK. Nokia produces technological products like mobile phones and smart phones, mobile computers and networks.(UKEssays2009)

Age and Gender:

Nokia products appeal to most age groups and are more unisex. They are now introducing mobile phones with vibrant colors that would appeal to women and also the younger generations

Income:

Low - E.g. - C-series and dual sim phones

Middle to High -E.g. - N-series, E-series, Communicators

Very High - E.g. - the Lumia Phones

Occupation:

Businessmen - this target market needs phones that look professional and have multiple features: 3G technology, web access on-the-go, support organizing functions and connecting with clients. The Nokia E-series, N-series and Communicators are targeted at satisfying certain needs of businessmen.

Students - social networking, gaming features, and music options are the eye-catching characteristics sought by this demographic class. The N-series, Xpress Music models and their latest model Lumia are quite popular in this segment.

Level of Education:

The user-friendly aspect of Nokia phones makes it easy for even illiterates to operate the phones.

COMPETITION

The main competition for Nokia is Samsung and Apple. Samsung is now the leading market shareholder followed by Apple and Nokia is third.

Samsung recently overtook Nokia as the top mobile vendor in the world. Analysts from IDC and comScore have published their own studies that bring detailed information on the standings of phone makers and also mobile OS market shares.

IDC notes that the mobile market shrunk 1.5% compared to last year's first quarter. That's a loss for feature phones though - the smart phone market in Q1 of 2012 is up 42.5% year over year, beating IDC's expectations (but lower than the growth in Q4 2011). (ComScore MobiLens)

Top Five Worldwide Smartphone Vendors

Shipments and Market Share, Q1 2012 (Units in Millions)

Source: IDC

Vendor 1Q12 Unit Shipments 1Q12 Market Share 1Q11 Unit Shipments 1Q11 Market Share Year-over-year Change

Samsung 42.2 29.1% 11.5 11.3% 267.0%

Apple 35.1 24.2% 18.6 18.3% 88.7%

Nokia 11.9 8.2% 24.2 23.8% -50.8%

Research In Motion 9.7 6.7% 13.8 13.6% -29.7%

HTC 6.9 4.8% 9.0 8.9% -23.3%

Others 39.1 27.0% 24.5 24.1% 59.6%

Total 144.9 100.0% 101.7 100.0% 42.5%

Samsung not only overtook Nokia in overall shipments, they also took back the position of top smart phone vendor from Apple. Their Galaxy line that covers several types of devices, screen size and price points led to a new record in the number of smart phones shipped in a quarter. . (ComScore MobiLens)

Strong user demand for iPhones and their availability with additional carriers put Apple in second place, well ahead of Nokia. The Finnish maker witnessed a huge drop in Symbian sales and Windows Phone isn't up to speed yet. (ComScore MobiLens)

As regards Operating Systems, comScore has plotted how each smart phone OS did in the US in the four month period ending in March. Android controls over half the market - 51% - and posted the biggest growth in percentage points. . (ComScore MobiLens)

Top Smartphone Platforms

3 Month Avg. Ending Mar. 2012 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Dec. 2011

Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Ages 13+

Source: comScore MobiLens

Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers

Dec-11 Mar-12 Point Change

Total