Nokia Market Analysis

The roots of Nokia go back to the year 1865 with the establishment of a forestry industry enterprise in South-Western Finland by mining engineer Fredrick Idestam. While in the year 1898, witnessed the foundation of Finnish Rubber Works Ltd, and in 1912, Finnish Cable Works began operations. Gradually, the ownership of this two companies and Nokia began to shift into hands of just a few owners. Finally, these three companies were merged to form Nokia Corporation in 1967. [1] Nokia Corporation engages in the manufacture of mobile devices and mobile network equipment, as well as in the provision of related solutions and services worldwide. The company has four main business functions or segments: Mobile Phones, Multimedia, Enterprise Solutions, and Networks. The Mobile Phones segment provides various mobile voice and data devices. This segment offers mobile phones and devices based on GSM/EDGE, 3G/WCDMA, and CDMA cellular technologies. The Multimedia segment offers mobile devices and applications with multimedia connectivity over GSM, 3G/WCDMA, WLAM etc. Strategic Management of Nokia The External Analysis examines opportunities and threats that exist in the environment and I will be discussing the fallowing. . P. E. S. T Analysis 2. Porter’s Five Forces/Market Trends 3. Types of Market 1. P. E. S. T Analysis: PEST identifies the political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors that of which directly affect a company. In this case Nokia. Political – As markets are deregulated, both operators and manufacturers are free to act independently of government intervention. In Countries like India and China where Partial regulations exist, government intervention does take place. Economic – With incomes rising, people have more disposable income, which enables consumers to be more selective with their choice of mobile phone, looking to other factors rather than fulfilling the most basic of user needs (text messaging and phone calls) and price being such a key factor. Social – The rise of the so-called information society has made telecommunications increasingly more important to consumers, both in terms of work and leisure. Users are more aware of mobile phone handset choice and advancements due to increased information availability. Strategic Management of Nokia Technological – There have been much global advancement in technology such as MMS, Bluetooth, WAP, GSM, GPRS, cameras etc. The Asian markets are more technologically advanced than their European counterparts, for example in 2002, just 4% of phones had cameras, whereas in Asia 90% did. It uses concepts developed in Industrial Organization (IO) economics to derive five forces which determine the competitive intensity and therefore attractiveness of a market. It consists of fallowing factors. Power of New Entrants:In any market arrival of a new product is not always welcomed. In mobiles world it’s not different a mobile phone or an online service is launched by Nokia it has as 50 percent chance of success. It’s like the launch of Nokia’s N95 Smartphone which was much appreciated by buyers then the launch of N96 Smartphone. Power of Buyers:Due to recent down fall in the economy, the demand of consumers buying new mobiles has come to a halt. Due to which companies everywhere are thinking of strategies to increase the demand of their products. Strategic Management of Nokia Threat of Substitute:There are substitute for everything out in the world. So goes for the mobile, and the services provided by Nokia but the problem lies in consumers switching to the substitute. The main reason is that most people don’t like to change to something new because they might find it hard to use or switch over. Power of Suppliers:If the suppliers change the price then company in this case Nokia has a direct impact on the pricing of their products. If there are more suppliers then it is easy to change from one to another if the first one is not able to provide the services a company needs. Competitive Rivalry:Business is good where there are competitors because it gives more chance to improve and go ahead of your rivals. Nokia keep their product catalogs up-to-date and keep looking for better technologies to update its mobile and services. 3. Types of Market : There are different types of markets on which a company makes strategies to fallow and consider before releasing products. Which are discussed as below. Monopoly:Nokia as a mobile manufacturer has dominated mobiles market with its high end N-series Smartphone to its low end mobiles. It was Nokia’s intentional strategy to keep ahead with the technology to keep customers interested in its products. Duopoly:It’s a market state when two companies dominate the market. In this market Nokia is challenging HUAWEI technologies in producing 3G technology dongles because at present time there is no other company in the world expect Huawei producing 3G dongles. Oligopoly:It’s a type of market where small numbers of companies in the market collude to take control of the market prices and products. In Nokia’s case it is colluding with Sony Ericsson and Samsung to make phones which use Nokia’s mobile operating system (Symbian S60). This eliminates the use of Window’s mobile operating system and newly introduced Google’s operating system Android. Perfect Competition:It’s a market where all Companies are on a same level. Nokia as a leading manufacturer still have Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and LG give a tough competition with products ranging from every low end user to high end tech loving customer. Internal analysis : Strategic Management of Nokia â€Å"It’s a management technique developed by Bruce Henderson for Boston Consulting Group in 1970 for assessing the long-term viability or profitability of products and market sectors. Categories include cash cows, dogs, stars, problem child or a question mark companies. †[1] Problem Child/Question mark:When a new product is launched in a promising market but it has a low market share but got potential to be a Star then a Cash cow or if everything fails it could become a Dog. In Nokia’s case its latest product from N-series Smartphone N96 is struggling to get the market share like its predecessor N95 Smartphone. Cash Cow: When a certain product’s market matures and its demand slows but it has a large market share is known as Cash Cow. Nokia has many products that reached their maturity and died away in recent days its high end Smartphone N95 reached its market demand and is slowly dying away because new technology is introduced every day. Star:It’s a new product when launched has a high market response and its sales rise. Companies like Nokia are in a search of new products which can be turned into stars and they invest money in Problem Child and Dogs to turn them in to a Star and then hope to turn them in to Cash Cow. Dog:A Dog is a product new or old market shares and sales decline very fast. In mobile industry technology changes very drastically so even a Star with bad strategy and marketing can be turned in to a Dog just as easy Strategic Management of Nokia Core competencies are activities and process performed by a company to keep ahead of the market and its competitors. â€Å"Business professors Bateman and Snell offer this answer: Simply stated, core competence is something a company does especially well relative to its competitors. †[4] Competencies of a company are things that are hard to imitate like customer loyalty etc. These Core Competencies change from time to time. In today’s market where every company is in a lose Nokia is thinking of new ways to get an edge on its competitors by introducing new services and products that are harder to imitate and trying to give most for consumers money. SWOT Analysis: Strengths: 1. Nokia has largest network of distribution and selling as compared to other mobile phone company in the world. 2. The financial aspect is very strong in case of Nokia as it has many more profitable businesses. 3. The product being user friendly and have all the accessories one want. 4. Nokia with wide range of products for all classes. . The re-sell value of Nokia phones are high compared to other company’s product. Weakness: 1. Some of the products are not user friendly. 2. Some of the weakness includes the price of the product offered by the company. 3. Nokia does not like to adopt change very quickly. 4. The service canters in third world countries are very few. Opportunity: 1. Nokia is also thinking of moving from mobile manufacture to personal computer manufacture. 2. As the standard of living in third world countries has increased the purchasing power of the people has increased as well 3. Nokia has to target right customer at right time to gain the most out of the situation. Threats: 1. The threats like emerging of other mobile companies in the market. 2. The new mobile operating systems from Google and Microsoft. 3. The biggest threat is not adopting new technology and putting in good use. 9 Conclusion: After writing this article I came to a conclusion that in any business successful or a newly established if not managed well and cannot take advantage of its opportunities can come to its knees. So for a business to run successfully have to man age its Competitors and threats that may affect the performance of a business.