Nokia recently announced four mobile phones at the Mobile World Congress 2017 including the Nokia 6, Nokia 5, Nokia 3 and the nostalgic Nokia 3310. We were at the Nokia event and had the chance to have a quick chat with Ajay Mehta, Vice President HMD Global to bring you some key highlights from Nokia’s global comeback.
When asked about the availability of the four phones in India, Ajay said ‘All the smartphones, as well as the Nokia 3310, will hit the Indian shores sometime in Q2 2017, probably by June.”
Ajay further added that “We will choose the channels to sell our smartphones based on our consumer base, whether it through online channels, offline channels or both. The main objective of our company is to reach all our consumers. In terms of price, Nokia will sell smartphones across all price brackets. Also, the entire portfolio of smartphones will be available across all channels though we might choose some selected partners for an individual product”. In other words, we can expect Nokia to sell its smartphone via both online and offline channels at least in India.
Another aspect where Nokia had always been the leader is the after sale service. Commenting on the after sale service plans in India, Ajay said – “We are already ramping up our after sale services. We will be in at least 250 towns around India with physical service outlets. We pioneered the Nokia Care before and hope to raise the bar even higher this time”. Not only this, Nokia will outsource the after sale service, however, the people there will be managed and trained by the company to not compromise on the quality. Further, Nokia also plans to tap the mobile accessories market in future.
When asked about the OS on which the future Nokia smartphones will run, Ajay mentioned that – “As of now, we will remain with Android and the decision for this entirely lies on consumer preferences. We might also consider Windows OS based on consumer demands. We will continuously have our fingers on the pulse of a consumer. To cater the evolving consumer requirements, we will evolve our portfolio of products. Consumer demanded to bring back the Nokia 3310, so we relaunched it in a new avatar.”
He also mentioned the possibility of Nokia manufacturing smartphones specifically for Indian consumers although that again depends on the customer feedback. He said – “India is one of the most important markets for us and is probably the biggest opportunity we have.”