Nokia 's Chief Executive Officer Stephen A Elop is confident that the company has finally taken its first baby steps towards a turnaround with the launch of its Lumia range of smartphones running on the Windows platform.
In an interaction with Joji Thomas Philip , Elop admits Nokia would have to do a lot more to take on Apple and companies using Google's Android, though. Elop calls the Lumia range a 'new dawn' for Nokia which will be the main weapon in the company's arsenal in its fight to retake lost ground and bring back the 'cool factor'. Excerpts:
In emerging markets, specifically India, Nokia has lost market share to smaller companies because it was too slow to respond to changing trends. For instance, Nokia was not present in dual SIM category until a few months back. So how does a large company like Nokia ensure that it responds quickly to changes?
Yes, Nokia was slow and late to the Indian market. But in the last quarter, we went from no dual SIMs to selling 18 million such handsets. This is huge. The reason why I am highlighting this number, and want to talk about what we saw in India is that it demonstrates that if you have a strong brand, which we do, if you execute well and deliver great products, it is amazing how quickly we make progress and how quickly we can bring people back on board.
We took huge share away from Chinese and local manufacturers who have been doing a lot of business on dual SIMs. If we apply this to other parts of our business and other emerging markets, then Nokia has strengths that are going to be crucial. The need for urgency is absolutely correct.
On February 11, when we stood on stage and said we are changing the course of the company and having a new strategy, we also said we were changing the way we work. Part of changing the way we work is about urgency. On February 11, I did not commit to a Nokia Windows device in 2011 because we did not know if that was possible.
Instead, we are here now announcing not one but two phones on Windows platform. People who have followed us for years would notice that it would not be months before these products come to the market. These phones are being loaded in boxes for shipment in the factories as we speak. This is just an example.
We have to do more. We have to be more in tune with the market. We have to move very quickly. We have to be responsive to change. This is part of the fundamental change we are bringing about.
How will Nokia differentiate its products from other companies that also use the same OS? What can you offer that is not present in other platforms such as Android?
There are a number of examples of great differentiation. Certainly Windows phones differentiate well from the other major platforms. But within the Windows phones, we have a number of elements that no one else has. It is important to note that we started work on the Windows device after everyone else started work on their products. What we have been able to demonstrate is how we can move faster and how we can differentiate our products. As time proceeds, we will be able to differentiate more and more.
But as much as we can make things different, that is not necessarily the right thing because our primary competition today is not other Windows phone makers, but manufacturers of devices on other platforms. It is Windows versus Android. If we do something very different, the benefits of the Windows OS will be lost and we will end up hurting ourselves.