|
Rivals to Nokia Oyj have their work cut out to catch the world's biggest maker of mobile phones in the race to win the world's next billion cellphone users. Industry figures at the CommunicAsia telecoms trade fair in Singapore this week were eager to take advantage of the continent's huge untapped markets, where only one person in every three owns a handset. But barriers to entry into markets such as India are significant and Nokia is already well established with a wealth of distribution channels and 40 percent of the Asia-Pacific market - higher than its 36 percent overall global share. Risks are also high - as evidenced by Motorola, Nokia's closest competitor in the lowest end of the market and overall, whose drive to win more of this type of business pushed it into the red last quarter. Sony Ericsson has already abandoned the very low end of the market to competitors. "Nokia has access to a huge salesforce in emerging markets that no other vendors or operators can match today. Motorola, Samsung and the rest remain some way behind," said analyst Neil Mawston of Strategy Analytics. The cellphone industry expects the number of people owning a mobile phone worldwide will grow to at least 4 billion over the next three years from 3 billion currently. Between 300 and 400 million of these new users are expected to come from India alone, where users can take advantage of call rates as low as 1 U.S. cent a minute. Tens of millions of people living in rural areas of India are buying their first phone - in most cases, an ultra-cheap model. A strong retail presence is crucial in Asia, where more than 70 percent of consumers decide which phone to buy at the point of sale - in contrast to Europe and the United States, where phones are often bought from operators who subsidise them. "If rivals want to catch Nokia in APAC (Asia Pacific) they will need to expand their distribution channels," Mawston said, adding that the firms would need also to expand their product portfolios. Samsung had a 16 percent share in the region in the first quarter, while Motorola held 12 percent, according to Strategy Analytics. Nokia's much larger scale has also allowed it to keep its gross profit margin for low-cost handsets above 25 percent, close to its global average. But adding tens of thousands of retail outlets or opening stores in just India is expensive, even for large vendors. "I'm not saying it cannot be done, but it needs quite a bit of investment," said Urpo Karjalainen, head of Nokia's business in the area. |
Mixx
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
delicious
reddit
MySpace
StumbleUpon
LinkedIn
Buying Metro tickets through NFC could be a reality by 2016
A new report from Juniper Research has found that 1 in 8 (13 percent) of North American and Western European ...
Citrix CloudStack 3 to offer Amazon-style clouds to customers
Protests erupt across Europe against web piracy treaty
Google is getting new test labs and 'Experience Center' at Googleplex
U.S government agency replaces BlackBerry with iPhone
SwaggSec hacks Foxconn, uses unpatched IE
Intex launches new 3D dual SIM touch phone, the Avatar
In the mobile game it pays to experiment with technology especially when it comes to design form. In...
Leaked Images, Availability, Pricing,
Specs, Pre-order
13 Feb, 2012, 05:11 PM IST
7.5
Off late, budget Android phones are being manufactured by the dozen by both local as well as International ...
Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman Review
More from Mobile phones
Sony toys with the idea of Vita OS-based smartphones and tablets
More from this Author
_011517074205_160x90.jpg "Epson Stylus Photo R3000")
Samsung launches three new dual-SIM...
How to - Multi-boot Android OS' on...
After BlackBerry thumb, medics worry about
iPad 3 to be announced on March 7, cites...
The Darkness II - Fear of the Dark
Resistance: Burning Skies dated
About Us | Site Profile | Tech2 Team | IBNLive News | IBNLive Hindi News | Cricket News | Indian Stock Market | Policy | T & C
Copyright © 2011, Tech2.com India - A Network 18 India Venture
