Made for India

"Made in India" is a ubiquitous phrase. What about "made for India"?
Nokia brought out its mobile especially suited for the Indian market,
the 1100. And this low cost basic model did work, it now holds a
market share of 25%. Interestingly, its white screen variant, costing
about Rs 250 more at Rs 3250 has just about 12% of the market. Can
there be a better example of price sensitivity?

But nokia has been exporting its models to India ever since it entered
India. India is the fifth largest market for the finnish giant with
sales of over Rs 100 billion, so its decision to invest in a factory
in India makes sense. Its investment of $50 million at the Chennai
plant demonstrates its proactivity.

Nokia is getting to be the next Xerox of the mobile world. It has
created a new category of products, the FMCDs (fast moving consumer
durables), because it could not be placed in consumer durables or
FMCGs. Currently it holds 60% of the market share.

However, nokia's India strategy has been an interesting one. Its
introduction of the low cost entry level models was well taken.
However, the higher color models were better developed and marketed by
its rivals Motorola, Samsung and LG. it delayed entering into
clamshell (flapping) models, and has only one till date.

The key feature of nokia that differentiates it from others is its
ease of use and its battery life. This makes the handsets slightly
more expensive than the comparable models of Motorola or Samsung. But
nokia was late to get into the CDMA segment, where LG and Samsung held
alliances with reliance infocomm.

Nokia is in the stars segment of the BCG matrix. Now it has stiff
competition with squeezing margins, thanks to falling prices. However,
the market will discard the weak players and reach the cash cow state,
and that is when nokia would actually earn the spoils of victory.