Nokia's North American troubles continue

Nokia is not interested in bending for the US market. Nokia wants to control consumers. But, the U.S. carriers control access to consumers, unlike the rest of the world. So Nokia focuses on other markets. Nokia stores and sales reps with offices nearby U.S. carriers is window dressing for press releases. The U.S. market is as strange to Nokia as U.S. footbal is to Europeans.

Haalo...haalo...haalo... Is anybody there? Tis a long distance call from Espoo.

Nokia has tried to crack the US market a number of times. It is true that the US model is different from Europe in that the carriers have much more say in the product and feature definition. This is changing and we are moving to a more open distribution model which should help Nokia. I think they have all the elements in place to crack the US market. Their OVI initiative shows that they see the future in contant and not just the end device. I foresee a surge from Nokia this year for a few reasons. Cost to the operators of high end phones. Its expensive to subsidize them. Nokia has a much better control over costs than its competitors + is much stronger in the low end. Open distribution model in the US will also help.

I won an N95 8GB and find it a delightful device. Of course I could not use with Verizon, so I changed to ATT, which was inconvenient. But, the Finns, know how to make a "smartphone". Period.

Nokia execs must be rolling their eyes. Nokia jumped into the US WiMax CPE market...only to realize their mistake. Last week, they dropped their WiMax tablet. Do you think Nokia product groups will listen with open minds to Nokia USA next time they want products for this peculiar market? When LTE is deployed in the US, Nokia can try again.

But, Doc Savage, Nokia USA is utterly clueless about what their market is.

Their design center is working feverishly on badge-engineered 08 Samsumgs for 2010 launches when they're not cloning themselves. They're planning to launch mass-market iPhone competitors (check out the N97 Price @ 550 Euro (US$700) and you realize it's not one) in 2010, instead fo working on the next big thing.

Overall, their American groups seem more interested in ego trips than tending to business.

Overall, Nokia has forgotten who they are. After bringing the current market to life by seeing that cellphones are objects of self-expression (like cars), they don't see that the next step in that direction is more user-phone interaction, starting with flips and sliders, and then onto touchscreens and else. They've become bloated with bureaucracy (like a 300 strong smfg ourcing group in the USA... where they don't manufacture) and designers too damn arrogant to get out and see what the market actually wants.

Hopefully, they can regain consciousness in time. In Finland and, particularly Asia, the real Nokia is alive. But if they can't succeed in the leading market, they'll be destined either to niches or to irrelevance, as their competitors get into their current stronghold in low end.

Nokia in the US has multiple issues that start with the employees and end with the employees. Yes, the carrier model is a challenge, but I see the competition working with the carriers successfully. What it truly comes down to is the Nokia US management here is either clueless (unlikely), or afraid to push back to Nokia global management and tell them what they really need to do (maybe), or Nokia Global Management listens and makes a conscious decision to not work with the US carriers (maybe). And, ironically, then the NOkia leaders keep trying to 'crack' the US market with their speeches about a new focus and dedication to a future business in the US. Let's bang our head on the wall again because it is sure to knock some sense into it one day, right?!?!? There has been a lot of attrition over the last 5 years with most of the good employees gone and now at Nokia's competitors which have dominated Nokia even further down to the 7 or 8% market share area. Nokia global management does not seem to learn, but the question is, 'Will they ever??'