Can Nokia Take Back Their Share Of The Market Place By Way Of Free GPS?

It’s not hard to see precisely why Nokia are annoyed. Smartphones right now account for 15% of global cell phone movements. This share will be expected to grow to forty-five percent by 2013. But Nokia’s cut of this quality marketplace fell from forty-four to thirty-five percent relating to the 2nd and 3rd quarters of last year, reported by research company Canalys.

The actual goal would be to improve gross sales of the company’s top-end units through leveraging the high-priced 2008 acquisition of electronic digital mapping company Navteq. The actual move is risky, nevertheless has a hint of desperation. Nokia would like to prevent rivals including Google and the Apple company from taking even more of their market share.

The new Nokia navigation product trumps all competitors’ current offers. It is free; it addresses 74 countries and also installs the map information straight on the phone. In contrast, customers of Apple’s iPhone must pay around $70 to get much the same application through Dutch routing system maker Tom Tom. Google’s product is provided for free, yet is just accessible to the relatively few people of its Google android operating platform and even then solely inside North America.

Nokia is paying an expensive price for this technologically enhanced package. Until now, the tactic was to charge cellular people for the navigation services and to promote Navteq’s electronic maps to car makers and competing manufacturers regarding routing products. Just about any mapping income had been welcome, after Nokia paid more than eight billion dollars buying Navteq, a massive forty times earnings back then.

The offer regarding free of charge navigation will undoubtedly eat straight into Navteq’s profits. True, those had been only two per cent of Nokia’s total revenue in the 3rd quarter. However Nokia may struggle to keep in front of rivals within the map-reading wars. Google may well expand the availability of its very own map offering within the year and then free of charge navigation may speedily become an industry standard. Maps on their own won’t be adequate to elevate Nokia to the market placement they desire to be in, nevertheless this is a good step in the proper direction.

Nokia Smartphones are attempting to restore their current market portion by means of free gps could it be adequate to confront its primary opponents?

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 at 6:02 pm and is filed under Smartphones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.