27 August 2007

HTC/Android Teach
Nokia Lesson In Advertising

It is well known that Nokia and its positioning in America leaves a lot to be desired. Despite their recent success, Nokia has squandered a great opportunity to grow and conquer the US market.

Even in the midst of a flagging economy, America has continued to spend more and more on high end smartphones of all types, just not Nokia's Symbian S60 handsets.

The biggest reason has been lack of marketing and apparent disinterest in the US market.

They have failed horribly, and are quick to blame their small marketshare on less sophisticated users, competition, and market desires, but this clearly isn't the case.

The biggest reason they fail is the entire country is basically clueless as to what Nokia S60, Eseries, and Nseries phones are capable of, or that they even exist! There is absolutely zero product awareness, carrier availability and compatibility, zero visibility, zero demonstrations, zero presence is retail stores frequented by the geeks and gadget lovers, and embarrassingly, zero mass media marketing!

Now Nokia will be schooled by a trio of its rivals, Google, Android, and the legendary High Tech Computer, or HTC, builders of the top smartphones in America. In a focused campaign, these three have been maintaining awareness. There have been various leaks to blogs and printed periodicals.

The SDK has been heavily distributed, and apps are already available for a so far nonexistent device. Videos of the HTC "Dream"/G1 are all over the web. They even released the actual blueprint drawings of its first Android phone with exact dimensions. Cellphone kiosks at Fry's Electronics, the geek's toy store of choice, and a gadget loving techie's mecca, are abuzz with news of Android's impending arrival, and people are asking about it. And last but not least, production of the first Android phone commercial is already underway, just in time for its major release!

It looks like Android is poised to be America's answer to Symbian, and its experience in marketing in America show a marked advantage already, despite HTC's meager global marketshare. While the N95 has been out in the US at least a year, and twice that long globally, it has managed to drum up minimal awareness here in America. Android has already gained more recognition and exposure. It will only be time before it replaces Symbian globally, and WinMo and RIM domestically, as the preferred software platform.

Nokia and Symbian squandered its chances to bolster its market position and make truckloads of revenue. Until the Symbian Foundation begins to release its open source offerings, Symbian will lose marketshare and remain an also-ran US market, Americans will continue to buy only what someone is willing to demonstrate and exhibit to them, and Nokia will learn how to succeed in America from HTC and Google, soon to be the new perceived leaders in the smartphone world.

Nokia is beginning to have the perception of a falling star, as desperate Motorola has been the past four years. And perception is everything. Will they be able to recover and right the ship, or will they disappear into American oblivion?