We are in Goa, the beautiful beach state in West India, for the sixth edition of the annual Nokia Strategy Summit. Apart from the sun and sand, it’s been a summit of nostalgia (last summit before the Microsoft acquisition), a reflection on a successful 2013, and way forward for 2014.
Lumia Portfolio
2013 saw the launch of full portfolio of Windows Phone 8 devices in India – Nokia Lumia 920, Nokia Lumia 820, Nokia Lumia 720, Nokia Lumia 620, Nokia Lumia 520, Nokia Lumia 925, Nokia Lumia 625, and Nokia Lumia 1020. Phew! That’s a range of devices at every price-point from INR 10,000 to INR 50,000 (in the neighborhood of $160 to $800 USD).
That did translate to good volumes. According to IDC, few months back, Windows Phone became the second largest OS in India with Nokia Lumia accounting for over 90% market share of it. Nokia Lumia 520, the most affordable Nokia Lumia device, emerged as the superstar. Not just in India, the 520 is the largest selling sub-$199 phone in the world!
“2013 has been a good year for Nokia Lumia in India. We launched 9 new devices in the market this year and clearly, each device has resonated well with consumers. With the launch of the two new in January 2014, we are confident that more and more people will switch to Lumia.”- P Balaji, Vice President & Managing Director, Nokia India
New Lumia Devices
While Nokia Lumia 1520 was announced earlier this week and available in stores already, at the Summit, Nokia announced that the other 6-inch phablet – Nokia Lumia 1320 – would be launched in the first half of January 2014. The 1320 will be available in orange, yellow, white, and black. Expected price? Well, somebody at Nokia said 1320 is half the price of 1520, so INR 25,000 (just over $400 USD) might be a good guess.
Building on the huge success of the affordable Nokia Lumia 520, the next variant of the same – Nokia Lumia 525 will also start selling in the country in the first half of January 2014. The 525 will be available in gloss orange, white, yellow, and matte black and with changeable shells.
“The Lumia 525 follows on the heels of its hugely successful predecessor, the Lumia 520, which has been a great success story for our Windows Phone 8 portfolio since its launch earlier this year. The Nokia Lumia 525 will expand our reach, bringing high end Lumia experiences to many more consumers at an affordable price.”- Vipul Mehrotra, Director-Smart Devices, Nokia-IMEA
Exclusive Experiences
Apart from the devices, a key offering of Nokia is the exclusive experiences like Nokia MixRadio and location services from HERE.
Nokia MixRadio provides ad-free music streaming on Nokia Lumia devices. With over 10 million songs and half a billion downloads, Nokia MixRadio is the number one music streaming service in India.
There has been tremendous growth in map data from India for HERE Maps. At the moment, HERE maps over 2.02 million kilometers of road network across 6400 cities in India. The HERE team has also added indoor coverage for about 200 malls in India and HERE Transit features 11 Indian cities now.
Growth in Enterprise
2013 also saw the Nokia Lumia portfolio gaining acceptance and share in the Indian enterprise segment, as organizations switched to Windows Phone proposition from their traditional enterprise mobility.
In the last two years, more than 400 enterprise including GMR Group, Tech Mahindra, Ibis Hotels, Deloitte, KPIT, Qualcomm, Emerson, CGI Info Systems, Trilegal, and Eureka Forbes, among others, have opted for the Windows Phone based Lumia portfolio. Most of the customers opt for Nokia Lumia 520 and Nokia Lumia 720. Nokia is adding more than 20 new customers every month in India - organizations that are part of the Business Today Top 1000 corporations.
The Lumia range offers a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for services like email and the Microsoft Office suite and offered tighter seamless integration and Enterprise grade security on the mobile device.
"Enterprise is a big segment for smartphones and we are seeing strong traction in it globally and in India. With shrinking IT budgets, CIOs are increasingly looking for simple standardized direct access solutions that connect with existing enterprise solutions without any additional investments and complexity in middleware. Windows Phone platform offers strong benefits and Nokia Lumia is at the forefront of bringing it to organizations. The Lumia portfolio allows them the flexibility of mobilizing a greater part of their workforce.”- Raghuvesh Sarup, Director-Sales, Nokia India
Closing Note
Nokia India has an interesting year ahead of them. In 2013, growing developer, marketing, and ecosystem partnerships have fuelled sales growth and furtherance of brand ‘Lumia’. The next year might just be the year when Nokia Lumia with Windows Phone turns the corner. It’s a challenging year with the impending acquisition by Microsoft, and I hope the force be with them!
