AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands-Nokia Corp. apparently will pursue an incremental strategy of portfolio expansion in the U.S. market, rather than gunning for a hit handset in the mid-priced sweet spot, according to Nokia chief Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo at the company’s Nokia World event here.
Asked what Nokia would do in the United States to reassert itself, Kallasvuo said there was “no magic bullet.” The task required “hard work and more hard work.”
Following Nokia’s announcement yesterday of four new handsets, only one of which might serve the U.S. market, it appeared Kallasvuo was not willing to provide specifics on what may be his company’s biggest global market challenge: the U.S. market.
The Nokia 6086, announced yesterday, is a mass-market silver clamshell phone distinguished only by UMA connectivity. The device is a quad-band GSM device, meaning it can work in the United States. It thus is likely to be offered by T-Mobile USA Inc., according to a Nokia representative, though no carrier deal was announced.
Kallasvuo said that his company had for years “over invested” in research and development in the United States, given the size of the market, which represents less than 10 percent of Nokia’s annual global shipments. But, he said, the two GSM carriers in the United Sates, Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and T-Mobile USA, understand Nokia’s efforts to meet their needs.
The Nokia 6086, however, faces an uphill battle outside of its utility as a UMA enabled handset. Its retail price for unsubsidized European markets was pegged by a Nokia representative as about $260. Unless T-Mobile USA offers the handset very cheaply to promote its UMA service offerings, the handset will compete against a formidable slew of devices in the United States priced at $50 or under.
