News outlets across the web are making note of a statement by Nokia to stop selling phones, feature and Symbian-based, in the United States and Canada. Resources reported that Nokia is going to put more of their focus on getting the Windows Phone business situated and said that once they release the first Windows Phone, the company will be “out of the Symbian business”. The president of Nokia went on to say that if the company is not “successful with Windows Phone, it doesn’t matter what we do (elsewhere).”
The division of Nokia that resides in the United States “is putting everything into Windows Phone, and promises the biggest-ever marketing push in what must surely be a last-ditch attempt to get big in America”, as written by The Register online. Other websites are expecting the same type of presence from Nokia in the United States. The company has been criticized for taking a long time to get anything to market and in the meantime the market share for Nokia has dropped as Apple and others keep climbing. Computerworld.com said that Nokia has a new strategy to get the Windows Phone to users in the United States and that you can expect to see the company concentrating its advertising efforts soon.
Microsoft and Nokia teamed up earlier this year and since nothing has really come from the partnership, you can bet that Microsoft is also hoping that something starts to happen soon. If Windows Phone 7 does not get anywhere in the market, their share of users is likely to fall further behind than they already are. Nokia only has a 15 percent share outside of China and 30 percent in China. But recently the company has lost some share to Android and Apple which have been climbing slowly in China. Apple recently added a deal to bring the iPhone to China via China Telecom.
Part of the reason that Nokia has larger share in China is that the brand never really took off here in the United States is that carriers were rejecting a subsidized version of some of Nokia’s more expensive models. At the same time, the Wall Street Journal said that there has been an “increased preference for smartphones among U.S. consumers” and that has been a good thing for Nokia and some of the phones they offer on the lower end.
