Nokia’s strategy shifts to Asia’s target to lock Samsung’s ZTE

June 20 news, according to Bloomberg News, Nokia will hold the Nokia Connection 2011 conference in Singapore tomorrow. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop will announce the company's development strategy and display new products at the conference. It is reported that Nokia will shift its strategic focus to the Asian market in the near future to counter the impact of Asian competitors such as Samsung and ZTE.

Nokia spokesperson Doug Dawson revealed that Elop will make an important speech at the conference tomorrow to stop the company’s declining market share in Asia. Doson called this an important speech for the first time in Asia after Elop became CEO.

Elop's top priority after becoming a Nokia CEO was to formulate strategies to compete against the Apple iPhone and Google Android phones in the European and US markets. In the Asian market, Elop will focus on competitors such as Samsung and ZTE. Elop made this strategic decision because both competitors are the world's largest mobile phone manufacturers, and the Asian mobile phone market is expected to grow by more than 40% in the next four years.

Boris Boehm, a fund manager of an investment company called Aramea Asset in Hamburg, Germany, manages 1.2 billion euros (1.7 billion U.S. dollars) worth of shares including Nokia. Bom said, "Nokia had previously ignored the importance of the Asian market because they have always regarded Apple as a major competitor, which led them to focus on the developed markets. Therefore, the production and sales of mobile phones that consumers can afford to pay for Has not received attention."

In the past nine months since Elop became CEO, he has announced to cut more than 8800 jobs, including outsourcing agreements, and announced that Microsoft Windows Phone 7 operating system and replace Symbian smart phone software to restore Nokia as a global The location of the largest mobile phone manufacturer.

　　 Falling stock prices Since the appointment of Elop as CEO of the company on September 10 last year, Nokia's stock price in the Helsinki stock market fell by more than 40%, hitting a new low for 13 years.

Although in the Chinese market, Nokia’s mobile phone sales increased by 30% in the first quarter. In addition, Nokia’s sales in China and the Asia Pacific region accounted for 45% of its total handset sales in the first quarter. However, the company said on May 31 that Nokia is currently facing the impact of many local competitors.

According to a survey conducted by US market research firm Gartner, Nokia’s share of the Chinese market dropped from 31.5% in 2009 to 20.4% in the last year. In the Indian market, Nokia’s market share fell from 48.9% to 30.2% in one year.

According to Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta, mobile phone sales in Asia will increase to 1.27 billion in 2015. Mobile phone sales this year are expected to reach 900 million units.

Asian market importance

It is reported that Nokia will also participate in Asia's telecommunications industry in Asia CommunicAsia conference. According to organizers, this is the first time Nokia has participated in this conference in the past decade.

Colin Gules, Nokia's executive vice president, said, “This is a very important market for us. We launched the first mobile phone specifically designed for the Asian market 14 years ago. This phone is very small and has Full-screen image display, and a variety of Asian language input systems installed."

According to Gartner data, Nokia’s product shipments fell 2.3% in the first quarter worldwide, and its market share fell to 25.1%, a decrease of more than 5%. In contrast, Apple's market share rose to 3.9%, ZTE rose to 2.3%, and HTC's share rose to 2.2%.

According to revenue calculations, Nokia’s revenue exceeded Apple’s in the previous quarter and remained the industry’s leader.

A report released this month by market analyst Nomura Holding analysts pointed out that although Nokia recently won a lawsuit against Apple, the company's product shipments this quarter will be lower than Samsung and iPhone.

Stop the situation

The Nomura research report pointed out that with the growth of 3G users in China and India, Asian mobile phone manufacturers will also occupy a place in the $138 billion smart phone market.

Major Asian players such as Samsung, LG and HTC currently use Google Android operating software. Nomura analyst Stuart Jeffrey said: "Unless Nokia introduces competitive products, it will be difficult to prevent the company from losing market share."

Nokia recently adopted a variety of strategies to accelerate the development of the Asian market. This includes plans to invest 200 million euros in Vietnam to build a factory base for the production of low-end mobile phones. The company stated that it hopes to “further expand investment” in the future and plans to start the factory next year.

Nokia currently has factories in Brazil, China, India, Hungary, Romania and Mexico to produce low-end mobile phones. There are factories producing smartphones in Finland, China and Korea.

It is reported that Nokia is also investing in emerging markets to develop various services such as currency transfer, news and education.

Nokia Bomb said Nokia investors, "If you ignore the importance of emerging markets in the strategic focus, then the local company will naturally replace your position in the market share."