Nokia Correcting Previous Mistakes (Maybe):
<< Didnt that design already fail? >>
You betcha. BIG time.
I say, the Nokia 3300 (particularly the American Version) BETTER correct previous mistakes.
I do have to admit, however, that when the 5500 was released, I did say that I thought it would sell well.
Ilkka Raiskinen, Nokia's SVP for Entertainment and Media Products says:
"We've learned a lot from the 5500. The 3300 does not compromise on the phone features. This time it is small, it has a colour screen. to sell in the millions he said "Yes [it will sell in the millions]. It's a mass market product."
The phone will be priced similarly to the cheapest colour screen handsets, which are around 200 euros before subsidies.
Time will tell on this one.
>> Nokia Says New 3300 Corrects Previous Mistakes
Lucas van Grinsven
CEBIT: HANOVER, Germany
March 11, 2002
Reuters
Nokia said on Tuesday its new 3300 mobile phone and music player was putting right some of the mistakes it had made with its predecessor and expected it to be a multi-million-unit seller.
Earlier on Tuesday the world's largest handset maker, which sells nearly two of every five handsets and whose product launches are closely watched by investors, unveiled two new mobile phones: the 3300 and an expensive camera phone for business users called the 6220.
The 3300 is the successor of the 5500 which was launched in late 2001 as its first phone to contain a digital music player and tried to cater to young, hip consumers.
Hardly any of them bought the model because it was much bigger than normal handsets. "We've learned a lot from the 5500. The 3300 does not compromise on the phone features. This time it is small, it has a colour screen," Ilkka Raiskinen, Nokia's senior vice president for entertainment and media products, told Reuters in an interview on the fringes of electronics trade show CeBIT.
When asked if he expected the new model to sell in the millions he said "Yes. It's a mass market product."
Nokia said the phone will be priced similarly to the cheapest colour screen handsets, which are around 200 euros before subsidies. A 64 Megabyte flash memory card to store music, which sells between 50 and 100 euros, is not included in this 200 euro price.
The launch came on the same day Nokia said its key mobile phones business, which generates 80 percent of total sales, would hardly grow in the first quarter. It previously estimated up to nine percent growth.
Expensive Phones Not Selling Well
Market research analysts said a wide range of new and expensive colour screen and camera phones were not yet selling in large enough quantities to have an impact on first quarter sales, and that Nokia relied more than ever on its strong position in cheaper phones.
Nokia said that on Friday it had reached a milestone by selling the 100 millionth 3310, one of the most basic phones it has. Globally there are some one billion mobile phone subscribers, and last year a total of 423 million handsets were sold to consumers.
The new 3300 would also cater to the lower end of the market, in particular the youth segment, Raiskinen said.
Nokia features the largest line-up of products in the intensely competitive handset industry. This has some analysts worried about Nokia's inventory risks, but the firm said it has hedged the risks by using standard components.
The new 3300 for instance has the same standard display and set of software which features in many other of its handsets.
"This reduces inventory risks, but also allows software applications developers to write one programme and run it on multiple devices," Raiskinen said. The 3300 will be able to download and play games.
Raiskinen is also responsible for the N-Gage, which is a phone but also Nokia's entry into the advanced mobile games market as it will compete with Nintendo's Gameboy Advance.
He said the N-Gage, due late this year, would be aimed at much more serious gamers, interested in playing console-like games. He compared the downloadable games for the cheaper 3300 with "snacks which you throw away after a few days".
If gaming catches on, Nokia will be able to bring the same programmes to a host of other devices which have the same standard software. <<
- Eric - |
