Microsoft Owned Nokia Devices Most Likely To Lose 2nd Spot In Indian Device Market By Q3, 2014

The recently published IDC report on Indian Mobile Market flashes many hidden happenings which is going to unfold in next 6 months. It’s encouraging that Nokia came back to top 5 players of Smartphone with average monthly shipment of 350K cornering 6% of Smartphone market. Prior to Nokia Device acquisition by Microsoft, Microsoft played smart move by using Nokia as vehicle to launch Android Smartphone to recapture lost ground and they succeeded a bit. Given the released shipment and timing of their Android enabled Smartphone clearly indicate that the adoption was lukewarm.

In the meantime, their Feature Phone shipment went down drastically and that impacted their overall device market share which is currently at 13%. Interestingly, domestic player’s calibrated focus on both Smartphone and Feature Phone brought them in striking distance to claim 2^nd position in Indian device market.

Post Microsoft acquisition, their consumer campaign turned to focus technological superiority and highlight prosumer benefits such as document editing and all. They missed to capture that those target segment is already captured by iPhone and Samsung high end devices.

With the growth reviving and Nokia Chennai plant taxation issue will limit them to continue procuring device from the plant and would be forced to procure it from their manufacturing plant or partners located in APAC region. It is going to squeeze their operating margin as Nokia device segment major strength in Feature phone market is very low end devices where domestic player are positioning their products aggressively. In my point of view, Microsoft owned Nokia device is going to lose their 2^nd spot very soon and I feel that Q3, 2014 Mobile tracker will show that. I would not be surprised that if that happen in Q2 only.

I strongly believe that Microsoft should change their strategy for Indian Mobile sector if any way they are willing to recapture Nokia lost glory and brand.

Why Microsoft Move To Position Nokia Android Device May Falter

Just before closing Nokia deal, Microsoft played strategically. They positioned Nokia Android device without being held responsible for recognizing Android success. The projected price and performance of proposed Nokia Android device is not fulfilling the competitive threshold. On minute assessment it’s clear that there are other players offering better specifications at 20-30% lower price points. The Camera specification of 3MB without any front camera support is one of the weakest linked coupled with RAM specs whereas now standard is minimum 5MP and 1GB RAM.

Interestingly, Microsoft in the last few quarter realized it loud and clear that there Lumia play is not picking up as Average selling price is going down and they are not getting good traction in major geographies like US. The other realisation by Microsoft that Nokia is king of low end device and major adoption of Asha platform based device left them vulnerable of losing market share in case of Microsoft insistence of constantly focusing on Window Mobile OS push.

In IDC released report, Nokia capture more than 14% total device market share in India where the market size is around 250 Mn per annum but unfortunately they were pushed out of top 5 Smartphone in India. It is indicative that Microsoft cannot afford to let go huge chunk of loyal Nokia customer. They also realised that it would be better to adoption strip down version of Android to broaden the probability of market share gain rather than keep on focusing on Asha platform.

As, I constantly reminded post Microsoft announcement of Nokia that Microsoft is not interested in device but using it as a medium to promote its other services. The upcoming Android powered device is nothing but validation of my raised point. Most of the Microsoft product such as Outlook, Bing, Cloud services, one drive, Nokia Maps, Nokia Store and BBM is going to be integrated in order to capture some of the traffic from Google.

Microsoft and Nokia must recognize competitive landscape in Android ecosystem where every alternate day there is price reduction by one or another OEM’s whereas the suggested price point of Nokia upcoming Android device to too pricy and may face uphill task to command premium from consumer with many of Android ecosystem features are missing. I strongly believe that the move is going to bring additional potential customer on their deck but it would be difficult for their sales team to convince users to use device which is so much Microsoft centric. We all must admit that Google did one thing beautifully that now most of the Android ecosystem users are used to use Google centric services. The change in environment may turn out to be show stopper of Nokia to get their adopted apart from Price points.

I will keep my finger crossed and would wait eagerly to see the potential traction by Nokia.