Nokia vs. Apple: Battleground India!

Ready, fight!

Ready, fight!

Nokia surprised its many fans around the world this week with the announcement that its N96 smartphone, the highly-anticipated successor to the flagship N95, would be available in India a month before its scheduled release in other markets. Of particular significance is that this announcement was made only three days before the release of Apple’s iPhone in that country.

Nobody’s denying that Nokia is trying to steal Apple’s thunder here, not even Nokia itself — they’ve got a 60% domestic market share to protect and see India as second only to China for future sales opportunities.

Both the N96 and the iPhone are likely to be considered luxury items in this part of the world — indeed, for about the price of three iPhones you could buy a brand-new car. In its favour Nokia was recently voted the country’s most trusted brand, while Apple has once again managed to get folks lining up to purchase their mobile device.

This battle for Indian smartphone supremacy won’t actually get started until Nokia gets some of their product on store shelves, but it will definitely be one to watch… Stay tuned!

6 Comments

  1. AC:

    Interesting — the smartphone is probably in the same place that the PC was when the average person started to buy one.

    The Toronto Star had an article about the Canadian cell phone industry today:

    http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/484799

    (Sorry for posting the long link, but the Tiny URL website isn’t working this morning.)

    Taking your blog and the Star article together, I’d say that the trend of the wireless industry becoming consumer-driven continues on every continent!

    Ed

  2. Oh Ed,

    I don’t know how you can continue to read the Toronto Scar when they publish such boneheaded remarks like “GSM’s emerging global dominance” — with a twenty-year history and over 3 billion subscribers around the world their global dominance is old news!

  3. AC:

    with the Toronto Stun and the two “national” papers being the alternative choices, the official organ of the Liberal party is the lesser of 4 evils….

    Besides, for my tech news, I read this blog!

    Ed

  4. Thanks for that!

    And for better Toronto news, try here:

    http://blogto.com/

  5. AC:

    http://tinyurl.com/5p394x

    Here’s the Star’s (sorry) review of Bell’s newest wannabe-Jebus-phone killer, the Samsung Instinct (now plastered all over the subway as part of Bell’s re-branding efforts). It’s supplanted the HTC Touch as Bell’s top smartphone.

    A 3-year contract gets you the phone for $129, $479 without contract. You have to cough up for a Fun 15 plan for 1 year, which is $15/month for this:

    http://tinyurl.com/6otmp4

    Now, the big question is, of course, is this Canada’s Jebus-phone killer? Or slavish knockoff?

    Ed

  6. I wrote a piece on the iPhone in India and how it is not going to change the game in the short term. Maybe you could check it out:

    http://adityasphones.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/iphone-3g-the-india-story/

    I don’t see the iPhone doing much damage to the mobile phone market in India for many reasons.


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