My friends..do you remember Nokia ?

 

 

My First Nokia Mobile Phone

 

 

 

Do you remember Nokia? Yes the mobile phone that was used by almost everyone five years ago. To most of us who were born in the 1980s, Nokia was our first mobile phone.  Nokia was dominating the market, everyone had Nokia. Nokia was very successful from 1998 up until 2008 when Blackberry and the iphone started to dominate the market and attract not only businessmen but also teenagers. Nokia lost a lot of its market share due to its weak forecasting of changing consumer tastes and preferences and its lack of sufficient research and development as well as its inability to compete with its competitors especially when it comes to adding innovative features and applications that are smarter and effective. Nokia lost its target market from all different ages whether it is the high school student or the university student or even the sophisticated business professional. It is sad to see that 5 years ago all my friends had a Nokia mobile phone and currently none of my friends have this mobile phone anymore even though it is still being sold in all our local mobile shops.

 

                We studied in our operations management class about Product Life Cycle that states that product goes through 4 stages: Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline. Nokia is definitely now in the decline stage for many reasons. The first reason is Nokia’s poor product design which did not attract consumers  because they looked very dull and stale unlike the Blackberry and the iphone.  The second reason why Nokia reached its decline stage is that they were always one step behind their competitors mainly Blackberry and iphone especially when it comes to adding innovative features such as 3G and free chatting and social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter. A third reason why Nokia reached its decline stage is its strong dependence on its brand equity. Its dependence and reliance on its brand equity for a long time led the company to focus less on research and development and less monitoring of all existing and potential competitors. A fourth reason why Nokia reached its decline stage is the changing technological environment. Nokia was very famous for its simplicity however people have changed because they started demanding smarter phones rather than simple phones. They started demanding phones with many smart applications rather than few simple applications. Therefore, the change in the taste and preferences of the consumer led Nokia to the decline stage as consumer demand decreased significantly in the past couple of years.

My question is what should Nokia do now to restore its glory and fame? Can it regain its market leadership one more time and become the number one mobile phone by defeating Blackberry and i-phone or is it too late?