Institute of Social Sciences

MBAD507 APPLIED STRATEGIC BRAND MANAGEMENT

Brand Audit Project For Nokia

Student | ID No.: Hassan Sahib | 20170901017

Instructor: Ezgi Merdin Uygur

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Table Of Content:

Cover 1
Table Of Content 2
Abstract 3
1. History 3
2. Brand Analysis 4
2.1 Logo & It’s History, Slogan 4
2.2 Packaging & Jingles 4
2.3 Celebrity Branding 4-5
2.4 Alliances 5
2.5 Brand Community 5
2.6 Brand Personality, Knowledge & Loyalty 5-6
2.7 Brand Archetypes, Identity Prism & Associations 6-7
3. Portfolio 7
3.1 For Consumer 7
3.2 For Business 7-8
3.3 For Innovation 8-9
4. Brand Equity & Positioning, Recommendations 9
4.1 Points Of Parity & Difference, Competition 9
4.2 Brand Equity 9-10
4.3 Positioning & Recommendations 10-11
5. Brand Scandals, Crisis & Counterfeiting 11
5.1 Nokia Fall 11
5.2 Nokia VS Apple 11-12
5.3 Shenzhen and Nokia (Nokla Copycat Phone) 12
6. Future Of Nokia 12-13
Appendix 14-18
References 19

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 Abstract
Nokia is a reliable brand that has a true authenticity and it can be considered as a legendary brand.
The company always had a vision to define its brand, products with a clear product design strategy.
It might not have the strong presences in today’s marketplace but Nokia is fighting to gain the rep-
utation it once had within the smart-phone business. While the company does have a lot of competi-
tors in the market now (e.g. Samsung and Apple). Nokia does still have the image of “user-friendly”
products and consumers still trust the company’s brand even though lots of them has moved on to
use competitors’ products. In this brand auditory, we will talk about Nokia’s history and then we will
dive into the brand’s analysis for the company, covering all the important aspects of Nokia’s brand.
Later on, we will demonstrate the company’s portfolio, it’s brand equity and positioning. The last
part will be dedicated to the future of Nokia.

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1. History

okia is a Finnish company largely known for its telecommunication technologies. It was founded on
the 12 May 1865 as a single paper mill operation. Through the 19th century the company expanded,
branching into several different products. In 1967, the Nokia corporation was formed. In the late 20th century,
the company took advantage of the increasing popularity of computer and mobile phones. However, increased
competition and other market forces caused changes in Nokia’s business arrangements. In 2014, Nokia’s mo-
bile phone business was sold to Microsoft. [1]
The rise of Nokia started during 1982, it introduced the first car phone and the company’s first digital tele-
phone switch. Later on, Nokia launched the Mobira Talkman portable carphone. And in the late 80’s Nokia
released its famous Cityman phone, which was the first portable phone to be made. On July 1991, Finnish
prime minister Harri Holkeri makes the world’s first GSM call, using Nokia equipment. And in 1992, Nokia
launches its first digital hand-held GSM phone, the Nokia 1011. Later in the same year, Nokia decided to fo-
cus on manufacturing mobile phones and telecommunications systems. Everything was going great for Nokia,
up until mid-2000’s. Nokia problems and struggles began to surface when Apple announced the iPhone (first
generation) in 2007. While Nokia did have a big market share in the smart-phones industry, but the company
started to lose it due to the popularity of the new iOS system. Nokia tried to update their Symbian Operating
system. However, the majority had already turned for either iOS or Android devices. Moving forward to 2011,
Nokia and Microsoft formed a business partnership. Nokia decided to adopt the Windows Phone as an oper-
ating system. Late October in the same year, Nokia announced its first Windows Phone (Nokia Lumia). After
the launch, Nokia’s share price fell and smart-phone sales decreased. Between 2011 until 2013, Nokia made a
loss of 368 million Euro. In 2014, Nokia decided to sell the mobile business to Microsoft. However, Microsoft
company efforts to promote and sell the Windows Phone failed so many times. 2014 was the end of Windows
Phone, the Lumia 830 would be the last Nokia branded smart-phone, with future models carrying the Micro-
soft Mobile brand instead. On May 2016, Microsoft had sold the Nokia branded smart-phone division to FIH
Mobile, a division of Foxconn, and HMD, a new company in Finland. In 2017, Nokia 6, a mid-range smart-
phone based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 system-on-chip running Android was launched. In quarter
2017, HMD was the best-selling mobile phone vendor overall in Vietnam and most Middle Eastern countries,
and also the no. 1 feature phone vendor worldwide. It was also the 3rd best-selling smart-phone vendor in the
UK, the first time for the Nokia brand since 2010. [2]

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2. Brand Analysis
2.1 Logo & It’s History, Slogans
Like any other huge cooperate, Nokia’s logo has changed multiple times through history. The first logo they
ever used was in 1866, it contained a round shape emblem with a salmon fish coming out of it. The salmon fish
is known to live in Nokianvirta River. The name “Nokia” is derived from the town Nokia and the Nokianvirta
river. In 1965, Nokia decided to change the logo. They used the emblem style as well and ditched the fish, they
used a simple font with the word Nokia inside a circle. 1966, was the year Nokia started using the logo that
we all know and familiar with. Nokia’s logo reflects the company’s philosophy of simplicity, reliability and
ease of connection. The Nokia features the Nokia logotype in bold blue with the famous slogan “Connecting
People” below it in a smaller font size. The font used for its logotype is a font designed by Erik Spiekermann.
The use of the font is very subtle yet it looks very sharp and strong, represents what Nokia is about. Nokia is
known for their simplicity and easy to use products and it shows in their logo and slogan as well “Connecting
People”. The dark blue color of Nokia’s logo reflects the cooperation reliance and its determination to enhance
& innovation. This also can be considered as a “Brand Characteristic”. The Nokia logo that we know today
also went through changes. When it was first introduced in 1966, the logo had three arrows on the side of it and
the blue was with a lighter shade. Later on 1992 was the year when Nokia introduced the “Connecting People”
slogan and went with a darker blue for the logo. After that, in 2011 the word-mark was given a face-lift, which
included a slight alteration of the font. The new type called ‘Nokia Pure’ was created by Dalton Maag. Nokia
also stopped using the slogan “Connection People” in their logo since 2011.

2.2 Packaging & Jingles

Nokia is known to be innovative, in 2013, Nokia published a post in its “Conversation Blog” to discuss how
the company treats its packaging. Nokia’s latest products are a lot more environmentally friendly, building and
innovating upon the company’s stringent policies. On average, the packaging for Nokia accessories has been
reduced in size by around a third, and on Nokia level plastic materials have been cut down to less than 3 per
cent. The fact that all the materials used are recyclable is particularly impressive. [3] When it comes to jingles,
Nokia didn’t really use much jingles in their advertisement campaigns. However, I will talk about Nokia’s
Tune; The Nokia tune which is also called Grande Valse is a phrase from a composition for solo guitar, Gran
Vals, by the Spanish classical guitarist and composer Francisco Tárrega, written in 1902. It has been the icon
of Finnish corporation Nokia since the 1990s, becoming the first identifiable musical ring-tone on a mobile
phone, and has become a cult classic. [4]

2.3 Celebrity Branding

Nokia advertising campaigns during the 2012 were mostly dominated by celebrities. Specifically, in India
since Nokia’s brand awareness in the country is very high. With exceptional products of high products, a re-
liable and large service network, Nokia has made itself the most trusted brand in India not just among mobile
phones. Nokia roped in Shah Rukh khan and Priyanka Chopra to amplify sales and cement mass connect with
a generation that was in a constant state of unpredictability and flux. Priyanka Chopra’s ad on Nokia’s Super-
nova series did the trick and the company stabilized its grip on the Indian market. However, due to Nokia’s
repeated inability to evolve ever since, the company began lagging behind in sales again. Shah Rukh Khan’s
affiliation with Nokia had been a long standing one. While the actor was brand ambassador for Nokia, the duo
collaborated on several ads. Nokia was even registered as the official partner for Khan’s IPL team, Kolkata
Knight Riders. Unfortunately, both, the campaign and the handset failed to make a mark with the target audi-
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ence and Nokia slowly fizzled out. [5]

2.4 Alliances
Nokia have done few alliances through the years, the most famous one was when they went on a partnership
with Microsoft to create the Windows smart-phone series (Lumia). Which we will cover in detail (5.1 Nokia
Fall). Going back to 2011, Nokia did a special edition phones for their Lumia series called “The Dark Knight
Rises limited-edition Lumia 800” which featured a special design only for the famous Batman film “The Dark
Knight Rises”. In 2017, Nokia released a special edition phones called “Nokia Steel Rose” that came along
with a watch from Withings (Nokia did an acquisition recently for the company).

2.5 Brand Community

Nokia in the recent years started to focus more on what their customers actually need. Communicating with
the company followers more through the use of internet. The company aim is not to get a big amount of fol-
lowers on their social media accounts, Nokia prefers to bring their customers to the official website of the
company. If you go to Nokia’s website, you can find a tab named “Community”. [7] Browsing through this
page you can find that Nokia offers a forums experience, categorized into five sub-sections. Each one on the
sub-sections offers a different interaction:
• Help is at hand: This sub offers a technical help for Nokia smart-phone users. The sub is divided into
thirteen sections that are dedicated to each smart-phone category that the company released in the
recent years.
• Get talking: This sub is for Nokia new users and also it is used as a feedback section. Even you can
find a section for fan contest and fans ideas as well.
• Tech talk: This sub is dedicated to the developers or any high-tech consumers whom interact with
Nokia to talk and discuss all Nokia’s products and how to develop them.
• Feedback: This sub offers any general feedback regarding Nokia’s cooperate in general.
• Beta labs: The last sub in Nokia’s community, this one is for anyone who is interested in working
with Nokia labs to develop their personal projects and ideas. Also, this tab offers you to become a
beta-test for Nokia’s products before they even released.
In 2018 Nokia announced that they’re sending some exclusive invitations to its fans to come join it in person
for its upcoming December 5 event in Dubai. After the revamp they did for their new “Community” tab. Nokia
Chief Product Officer Juho Sarvikas asks that fans leave a comment in the thread over at Nokia’s Community
page. A lucky few will then be selected for a 48-hour round trip to Dubai. [8] This example proves how Nokia
is putting more effort to focus on their community more. However, Nokia shouldn’t be avoiding the use of
social media as well, since it has a huge impact. Research shows that social media is increasingly a platform
consumers use to express their loyalty to their favorite brands and products, and many seek to reap benefits
from brands for helping promote their products. Social Media also plays a key role in protecting brands: 58
percent of social media users say they write product reviews to protect others from bad experiences, and nearly
1 in 4 say they share their negative experiences to “punish companies”. [9] At the end, we think Nokia should
put more effort into promoting their social media accounts and pay more attention to them.

2.6 Brand Personality, Knowledge & Loyalty

As a persona, Nokia is one of the most valuable brand that has a distinct personality. The use of their slogans
“Connecting People” & “We Call This Human Technology” emphasis the human side of the cooperate. They
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also reflect this in their commercials, through the years when Nokia started to make mobile phones, they al-
ways showed us in the commercials how user-friendly & very down-to-earth products that anyone can use in
a very simple way. And they always use normal people in a relatable situations doing daily life chores, so the
customer can relate to Nokia as it is a trust-worthy company that actually cares about their customers. Most
analysts Say’s that; Nokia comes as a young, sophisticated, hip & a spirited company.
Implementation of brand personality can be measured using the big five-brand personality scale by (Aaker,
1997). Nokia’s sincerity comes as “down-to-earth” & “honest”, when it comes to excitement, in the recent
years Nokia is trying to appeal as “imaginative” & “up to date”. In the competence criteria, I believe Nokia
is “reliable” & “intelligent”. Sophistication, when Nokia first started it was more of a “glamorous & upper
class” but that all changed to a more “charming” approach. As for the ruggedness, Nokia is more lean towards
the delicate side for its sincerity.
When it comes to brand knowledge, there are two dimensions that should be taken into consideration, the
first one is “Brand Awareness”. Through the years Nokia has always tried to identify a new way to invent
their smart-phone business after failing to compete with the release of the first generation of iPhone. And the
struggle continued with the Microsoft deal to make the “Windows Phone”. But that is all in the past now. In
2018, it is reported that Nokia still has a strong brand recognition. Even though Nokia isn’t really responsible
for making the new HMD Global phones, one analyst at Counterpoint Research reported that Nokia branded
phones were the 8th most popular globally in terms of shipments in Q3, while it was apparently the top-selling
brand in the Middle East and number three in the U.K. [6] The second dimension is “Brand Image”, the com-
pany did have some upsides and downs during its journey but mostly the associations are on the positive side.
Brand loyalty, the company through the years did lose lots of customers especially in an industry that is dom-
inated by Samsung and iPhone. However, Nokia as a brand still managed to have a solid amount of followers
and loyal customers. In addition, Nokia is working very hard to attract new customers as well. Number have
shown that the new HMD Global phones are making a good profit to the company taken into consideration
it is a new business after all. Nokia as a whole cooperation it managed to stay relevant to this day. In 2018,
Nokia was ranked at number “36” for The most 100 sustainable global cooperation’s. While this might seem
not a very high ranking, let us not forget that Nokia went through some obstacles in the smart-phone industry,
they’re doing a lot of efforts to come back strong in the market. Nokia as a brand will stay relevant in people’s
perception since it was the first company to start the whole “portable phone” concept.

2.7 Brand Archetypes, Identity Prism & Associations

Archetypes is a theory was conceived and developed by Swiss psychologist (Carl Jung). A brand archetype is
a genre you assign to your brand, based upon symbolism. Nokia’s Archetypes falls into the category of “The
Explorer” (Anti-establishment, confidence). Nokia’s comes off as a cooperation that likes to explore. Adding
to that helping people express their individuality through their products. (Seeing that in the smart-phone busi-
ness, they’ve tried so many alternatives, from Windows phone to Android). Also in the experience side, Nokia
likes to have a better experiences and have more of an authentic feel to it (5G Service). Nokia’s Identity prism
(J. Kapferer, 1986) comments:
1. Physical Facet: High quality products and services associated with technology reliability.
2. Brand Personality: Stylish and very trendy. (But old)
3. Brand Culture: Commitment and very passionate towards its customers.
4. Brand Relationships: Based on mutual trust between the company and its targeted market.
5. Customer Reflection: User-friendly & anyone can use it for a specific benefit. (Some cases Nostal-
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 gia effect).
6. Customer Self Image: Inner passion, different, independent & childhood association is some cases.
Brand associations in Nokia’s case has been a roller-coaster. Up until late 2015, Nokia was perceived as old,
outdated company. This was the effect of releasing the “Windows Phone” which didn’t really generate good
reviews from the smart-phone industry users, while Apple & Samsung continued to dominate the market.
Nokia is a very reliable company whether their smart-phone business died or not, and that comes from the
other innovative services and products that the company makes. However, recently Nokia is trying to gain
more respect within the smart-phone industry and with the new generation of phones, Nokia is taking good
steps towards claiming the reputation that it had before.

3. Portfolio
Nokia’s portfolio has a lot of variety starting from smart phones, Networking & Innovation labs. The company
divides its portfolio into three main categories:
• For Consumer: this category includes three sub-brands. Smart Phones, OZO audio & Health.
• For Business: this category also folds under three sub-brand. Networks, Health Solutions & Media
Technologies.
• For Innovation: this category also includes two sub-brands. Innovations with Nokia, Bell Lab.

3.1 For Consumer:

As stated before this category folds into three main sub-brands. Starting with Nokia smart-phones. Nokia fi-
nally ditched its windows phone in 2017 that failed to meet the expectations of the customers since Windows
brand image doesn’t really mesh well with Nokia. Hence why Nokia finally started its own Android phones.
The series so far includes eight types of smart-phones that runs on the Android system. Their latest release
was the Nokia 8 Sirocco. Along with the smart-phone line Nokia continues to release their classic phone line
(nostalgia-laden phones) but with more updated versions of them. Their latest was Nokia 3310 3G & Nokia
8110 4G. OZO Nokia is another sub-brand; it is an advanced camera which is able to record stereoscopic
(3D) 360-degree video. The device was announced in July 2015 and first released in November 2015. In 2017
Nokia OZO stopped releasing the headset however they’re still using the technology essence in their new
smart-phones devices. In January 2018, Nokia licensed the OZO Live software to a new start-up called Im-
prove created by former employees working on it to continue development of the software. Nokia Health, also
known as (Withings) is another sub-brand under the consumer’s category, this sub-brand. It was first founded
in 2008 by Éric Carreel and Cédric Hutchings in France. By the year 2016, Nokia made a deal with Withings
and it merged under Nokia’s Health. Withings offers watches, scales & health monitors. Along with that they
have a mobile application called Health Mate that can be connected to their products. The application is for
tracking your sleep schedule, heart rate and so much more health related data.

3.2 For Business:

This category was one of the most interesting ones to dive into, the variety of its sub-brand was somehow
shocking a bit. Nokia is a huge cooperation that operates in so many segments in the market. As stated before
this category folds into three main sub-brands. The first one is Networks, Nokia when it first started it had a
great impact on the Online networking and they’re pushing the limits this time with the brand new 5G. 5G
is the new generation of radio systems and network architecture. For mobile operators, 5G is enabling a new
level of network economy and a leap forward in network efficiency. [10] Adding to that, Nokia also provides a
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cloud service or as they refer to it as (Communication Service Provider). The cloud work is to build a dynamic
network that is easy to scale and manage. It is a virtualized networks and software solutions to deliver flexible,
high-quality, reliable services. [8] Nokia also provides Internet of Things (IoT). This service is considered as
a help service. Basically what it does; creating new business models and connected experiences through the
adoption of M2M (machine to machine) and innovative new consumer products. The solutions that IoT pro-
vides is the seamless fabric that combines end-to-end connectivity with flexible, secure, horizontal platforms,
device certification and an IoT ecosystem. [11] The second sub-brand is the Health Solutions. When Nokia
started working along with Withings it wasn’t just a merge for the sake of the tangible products that Withings
provides, it was also for the health studies that Withings does to promote a healthy living life & environment.
Withings has an ecosystem of connected devices that easily track and monitor key health metrics, including
activity, blood pressure, weight, sleep, and temperature. Hospitals, insurers, and researchers enjoy easy access
to an open application programming interface (API) to find the information they need. Withings has proven
health care solutions for employers, hospitals, and researchers. They’ve helped organizations to implement
diabetes prevention programs that can be life-saving interventions HR departments engage corporate wellness
programs that inspire employees to get active using fitness monitors, and researchers with clinical trials, With-
ings is committed to offering an open API as well as support for clients who wish to engage in studies or re-
mote monitoring. [12] The last sub-brand in this category is Media Technologies. Nokia provides a file format
solution for High Efficiency Image File (HEIF). This image file format is known for its high quality image,
the developing for this file format started in 2013, HEIF will soon replace the JPEG file format when it comes
to pictures. As the name suggests, HEIF is a more streamlined way to store image files. Using advanced, mod-
ern compression methods it allows digital photographs to be created in smaller files sizes, all while retaining
higher image quality than its JPEG alternative. Nokia provides an open source Java-script HEIF decoder for
web browsers. Which means that you can see and use HEIF images online.

3.3 For Innovation:

The last category in Nokia’s portfolio. Includes Innovations with Nokia, which is a workspace (Garages) that
are distributed around few European countries. The idea behind the garage is to make it as an ecosystem open
network, where people and creators team up with Nokia to create new projects and business. Open Ecosystem
Network is a free-to-use open innovation environment. It is centered around connecting companies of dif-
ferent sizes and individuals of diverse talent to share their real-life problems, insights, assets and innovative
solutions. Nokia want to facilitate encounters and create business opportunities that might otherwise not have
happened. In practice, this could mean things like: a startup getting to pitch their product to a huge global
brand, an ISV finding a new market for their bespoke industry-specific solutions or two individuals of dif-
ferent backgrounds coming together to develop a shared passion project. With Nokia as the founding partner,
much of Open Ecosystem Network’s current offering is related to connectivity technologies. [13] Nokia Bell
Labs is also another sub-brand from Nokia Innovation. It was formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and
Bell Telephone Laboratories. In 2016 Nokia did an acquisition to it and named it as Nokia Bell Lab. The lab is
considered as an industrial research & a scientific development company. It has achieved so many things and
won about 8 Nobel prizes. One of their recent research was in 2018, Arthur Ashkin shared the Nobel Prize in
Physics for his work on “the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems which was developed
at Bell Labs in 1980s. Also in September 2016, Nokia Bell Labs, along with Technische University Berlin
Deutsch Telecom T-Labs and the Technical University of Munich achieved a data rate of one Tera-bit per sec-
ond by improving transmission capacity and spectral efficiency in an optical communications field trial with
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a new modulation technique. [14]

4. Brand Positioning & Equity

4.1 Points of Parity & Difference, Competition
To understand the brand positioning of Nokia, the first step to do is to make a SWOT analysis. This is to iden-
tify the (Points of Parity & Points of Difference) and the targeted market and the competitor’s segments for
Nokia.
Points of Difference:
• Nokia is known mainly for its name. The company is one of the first leaders in the communication
field and this can be considered as advantage since they have an experience in what it takes to make a
good and efficient quality product.
• Nokia also has a very strong knowledge base and a large distribution channel especially in the Asian
part of the world.
• They also provide a very user-friendly products and have a long lasting reputation.
• The smart-phone industry is growing. Thus, Nokia can benefit from this to grow back again in the
smart-phone industry.
• Nokia’s venturing into the 5G new generation of radio systems will also help Nokia to gain more
competitive advantage and add value.
Points of Parity:
• Nokia already have a good reputation, the new adaptation for the Android system with HMD Global
can put the company back in the spot-light if they continue providing high-quality smart phones.
• Nokia definitely suffered to respond for its competitors in the smart-phone industry. As we stated
before, Apple and Samsung started to dominate the industry by making a very well designed smart-
phones while Nokia’s suffered providing a poorly designed smart-phones (Lumia Line) and took them a
long time to figure out what their next step was going to be.
Competition, Nokia is currently going head to head with the new entrants in the market (e.g. Oppo & Xiaomi)
that are starting to gain 17% of the market share world-wide. Along with that Apple, Samsung and Huawei
owning more than 47% of the market share. [15] Nokia has a very strong competitors and they need to step
their game and work harder to gain the market again.

4.2 Brand Equity

Applying Keller’s Brand Equity Model [19] also known as the Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) to
Nokia’s brand equity.
1. Salience: The awareness aspect for Nokia is quite high, since whenever you ask a consumer about
Nokia, they will always remember what it looks like and their famous slogan “Connection People” along
with the famous ring-tone. However, such associations and awareness is only limited to smart-phones.
Meaning that Nokia should pay attention to expand its category and put more effort into promoting its
other business. Nokia has also claimed 95% Brand awareness for its “Nokia Brand” in Capital Markets
Day. [19.1]
2. Imagery: Unfortunately, Nokia is still somewhat labeled into the (old) & (outdated). The company’s
latest effort did somehow diminish such imagery in consumer’s perception, but the mistakes that Nokia
made in the past will take longer to fade away from people’s mind. Nokia does also have some positive
associations such as reliability and the brand’s excitement towards being more human. [19.2]
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 3. Performance: Nokia’s latest smart-phones are receiving moderate-good reviews from the general
public. But while comparing the performance of the new HMD phones to other competitors such as iP-
hone and Samsung, the expectations from consumer’s perspective are somewhat underwhelming. [19.3]
4. Judgments: Nokia’s latest smart-phones collection quality is quite solid. As for its credibility, the
company always had a good reputation to make a good performing product. In the consideration and
superiority, Nokia still hasn’t won in this category, since most of the smart-phone users still prefers other
competitor’s products. [19.4]
5. Feelings: Nokia still has that aura, when a consumer hears the name Nokia you get the feeling of
trust and security. It might be not as exciting as it used to be but Nokia’s playground when it comes to
credibility is very high. [19.5]
6. Resonance: The loyalty for Nokia used to be very high during early 90s until late 2008. These days
it feels like Nokia’s loyalty decreased, while the company still do have some decent amount of followers
but it isn’t enough to label the company in the statues of “repurchase”. Nokia needs to remind the con-
sumers of the worth of their new products and why should we buy them. Also Nokia needs to pay more
attention to its customers, rather than being an engineer driven company to achieve a sense of commu-
nity and get on a higher degree of engagement with its customers.

4.3 Positioning & Recommendations

Nokia’s positioning in the smart-phone industry and in the telecommunication business has a unique attribu-
tion. This isn’t something new to the company and this has been their strategy since the beginning. Coming off
as a unique brand with a variety of products that are known for their high-end quality isn’t something easy to
achieve in a very short time period. While Nokia did have its moments when the philosophy of being “totally
different” failed them to keep up with the market needs. Notably when they released “Windows Phone”, af-
fected the revenue sales of Nokia and made it lose its market share in the smart-phone industry, the company’s
reputation suffered up until the release of HMD Global smart-phones which helped Nokia to go back on track.
While it is questionable whether Nokia can succeed or not in the smart-phone industry again, recent numbers
shows that Nokia is rising globally. [16]
Why is the company struggling then? I think Nokia is lacking to provide an exact “brand” definition. The
Nokia name is valuable with no doubt, it brings to mind reliability, user-friendly, quality phones. Android One
(HMD Global) is a great step toward making straightforward smart-phones. However, Nokia still needs to
work on the quality of its hardware and make its phones desirable. If we take a look at the specs of the recent
releases, the Nokia 8 Sirocco, priced at around $850 has specs that are strong, not spectacular enough, with a
5.5-inch Quad-HD OLED display and a dual 12MP cameras. But the almost squared-off design doesn’t scream
high-end in 2018. While comparing it to the new Samsung Galaxy Note 9. It’s the biggest Android phone that
will grab your attention in 2018, with a size-able 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display, a huge 4,000mAh battery
for all-day performance, and up to 512GB of internal storage and 8GB of RAM. Slot in a 512GB microSD
card, and you can have the first mainstream 1TB phone in your hands. That’s bigger than a lot of laptops. [17]
Putting that in perspective, Nokia isn’t really putting a lot of effort into their designs that much, then again this
is understandable since (HMD Global) is just starting. Nokia also needs to ditch the classic-phone manufac-
turing. Launching nostalgia-laden phones such as the 3310 and 8110 isn’t a long-term plan, even if the 3310
did shift decent numbers. Nokia should either market it-self as a high-end Android maker so they can compete
again in the smart-phone industry.
Another perspective, I do think Nokia should put more focus into the premium market segment. It could be
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hard for the company at first since Apple and Samsung a dominantly covering that segment at the moment but
Nokia has a brand recognition and a solid operating system to compete. Encouragingly, customers have a high
willing-to-pay towards high-end smart-phones. Statistics shown that the average smart-phone price grew up
to 21 percent (from 309$ up to 374$) in 2017. [18] Also the company should lean towards being “customer”
oriented rather than being “engineer-driven”, meaning that Nokia should listen to their targeted market more
than trying to be more innovative.

5. Brand Scandals, Crisis & Counterfeiting

5.1 Nokia Fall
Nokia is known for its innovations and great designs, but what did exactly happen that made Nokia fade into
the background of the smart-phones industry and let the competitors dominate the whole market? The answer
to this question isn’t that simple. Looking into Nokia’s history track we noticed that the crises came from two
important reasons, the first reason is that Nokia ignored the American market. The company simply refused to
compete energetically and respectfully in the American market that was treated as an innovation afterthought.
Nokia tried to get away with preserving its market dominance in Europe and growing its leadership in Asia.
The disruptive emergence of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android revealed the magnitude of this strategic
blunder. You can’t be a genuine global innovator if you’re a loser in America. Look at the numbers: From 2009
to 2010, Nokia’s global share of the smart-phone market dropped from almost 47% to roughly 38%. [20]
The second reason is Nokia’s partnership with Microsoft was a big mistake. Microsoft had always struggled
to make a good smart-phone because they wanted to establish more control over the user-hardware just like
what was Apple doing with their iPhone. This made the windows-phone operating system to become a very
refined-product but it also made it very difficult to work with Microsoft since they wanted to take more con-
trol over the products that offered windows-operating system smart-phones. Later on 2010, Nokia replaced
its CEO with a former Microsoft employee, Stephen Elop whom had a vision of ditching Nokia’s operating
system at that time “Symbian” and put “Windows Phone” operating system in Nokia’s devices. This whole
plan happened within a year, 2011 was the first year to release the first “Lumia” smart-phone that operated
on windows phone system. Financially this was a great deal for Nokia since they were getting 250$ million
dollars from Microsoft just to use the brand name license while Nokia was paying back less the amount to
Microsoft for the support of their devices. This made other companies to ditch the “Windows Phone” oper-
ating system and move on to Android operating system instead, which had a bad effect later on causing the
“Windows Phone” and “Symbian” to decline their market shares while iOS & Android smart-phones contin-
ued to rise. [21] All this led everyone to stop developing any further applications for the windows phone since
it was clear that the market main focus was iOS and Android, this led to Nokia’s stock-price to decrease by
75%. Later one, Microsoft decided to purchase Nokia’s mobile phone business for a 7.2$ million dollars in
2014, after one year only Microsoft decided to ditch the mobile business and they wrote-off for 7.6$ million
dollars and ended firing 8,000 employees. This of course had a very bad effect on Nokia’s brand image since
the windows phone was made exclusively for Nokia only. Nokia’s ultimate fall can be put down to internal
politics. In short, Nokia people weakened Nokia people and thus made the company increasingly vulnerable
to competitive forces. [22]

5.2 Nokia VS Apple

In 2009, Nokia filed a lawsuit against Apple. The cooperate accused Apple of infringing some of Nokia’s pat-
ents as well as patents from NSN and Alcatel-Lucent since Nokia owns those companies and their respective
11
patent portfolios. According to Nokia, it’s been a longstanding infringement as Apple has allegedly relied on
some of Nokia’s patents since the iPhone 3GS. Those patents are related to software, video coding, chip-sets,
display, UI and antenna. This resulted in a legal battle between the two majors with Nokia filing another suit,
this time with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), alleging Apple of infringing its patents in “vir-
tually all of its mobile phones, portable music players and computers”. Nokia went on to ask the court to ban
all U.S. imports of the Apple products, including the iPhone, Macintosh and iPod. In June 2011, Apple settled
with Nokia and agreed to an estimated one-time payment of $600 million and royalties to Nokia. The two
companies also agreed on a cross-licensing patents for some of their patented technologies. Later on, 2016
Nokia filed another lawsuit against Apple after when they said that they would no longer pay to use Nokia’s
patents, many of which are built into Apple’s suite of products, accusing the Finnish company of extortion. In
response, Nokia filed lawsuits in 11 countries, including Germany and the United States, aiming to defend its
intellectual property. Nokia said that Apple should pay for technology used in smart-phones, tablets and other
devices. By the end of 2017, the companies said that they had settled all of the lawsuits, and that they had
signed a new patent agreement under which Apple will start paying royalties to Nokia from the second quarter
of 2017. The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the agreement. [23]

5.3 Shenzhen and Nokia (Nokla Copycat Phone)

Copycat. It’s a word that has almost become synonymous with China’s tech scene over the past decade. And
while the days of China’s most blatant copying are long gone, the so-called “Copy to China” model is still
pretty prevalent in the country’s startup scene. And of course, plenty of Chinese internet companies are also
engaged in copying each other. Nokia company was one of the many victims that faced plagiarism in China. In
2008, Nokia Philippines has been alarmed with the increase in the number of cloned phones recently. It’s not
only the popular Nokla phones from China but all other variations as well. While a number of consumers tend
to buy the cheaper fake versions, others are not really aware that what they are buying are total knock-offs.
Nokia then issued a statement regarding the issue: [24] [25]
• Warranty: Nokia mobile phones bought in the Nokia Store or from its authorized dealers have a blue
12-month limited warranty sticker from Nokia Care slapped on the top or side parts of the phone’s box.
A Nokia Care Tamper Proof warranty sticker is also found in the mobile phone’s accessories such as the
charger, battery, memory card, or data cable.
• Stamp of Approval: All Nokia phones bought from the Nokia Store or any of its authorized dealers
have a Tamper Proof Type label at the back of each mobile phone along with the NTC logo and the Type
acceptance number as part of one sticker. Also found in the back of the mobile phone is the Nokia tamper
proof Warranty Seal.
• Battery: To see if your battery is the real thing, you have to make sure the hologram label reflects
the Nokia Connecting Hands at one angle and the Original Enhancements logo at another angle. When
you angle the hologram on the left, right, down and upsides of the logo, you should see 1, 2, 3 and 4 dots
on each side respectively.

6. Future Of Nokia
Nokia’s future looks bright. It all started in 2015 when the vision of having a 5G cellular mobile communi-
cation was presented at Bell Labs by Marcus Weldon the Corporate Chief Technology Officer of Nokia. Bell
Labs is cooking up to support Nokia’s initiative to reach beyond its traditional telecom turf and offer appli-
cations and infrastructure for enterprises and manufacturers. The evolution of network infrastructure toward
12
 “5G Vision according to Nokia”
5G has the potential of creating $11 trillion in productivity gains, said Weldon, citing figures from McKinsey.
“The stimulus is 5G because it has attributes that are much better than LTE.” While 5G is expected to be 20
times faster than 4G, depending on whose estimates you’re looking at, that’s just part of the story. “5G is not
just 4G plus one, it really is a re-imagining of how we conceive, manage and orchestrate networks,” Weldon
said. “Bell Labs is delivering a lot of innovation in data-streaming, analytics at hyper-scale, real-time sched-
ulers, and dynamic radio adaptation, all around the concept of a low-latency, highly reliable network.” [26]
5G technology will be launching in late 2018 according to Nokia. The initial launching will start in few states
in America along with other emerging countries. This means that all the big telecom giants’ starting from
Airtel to Vodafone would be buying equipment’s from Nokia. It is also important to note that after merging
Alacatel Lucent in itself with Nokia. This will give Nokia the exposure in capturing markets in North America
as well. Nokia is also aiming to release a new HMD phone in 2019. Qualcomm in its press release has revealed
a list of OEM companies who are working with it to bring 5G smart-phones and HMD is one of them. [27]
There are some speculations on the internet that Nokia is aiming to release a new HMD device that will be
called “Nokia 9 Pure View”. The phone will of course be using the new 5G service as we stated before and the
latest screen rumor puts the display at 5.9 inches, adding that it will have an 18:9 aspect ratio. Rumors sug-
gested that Nokia 9 seemingly will have a metal frame and a glass back, while the dimensions are apparently
155 x 75 x 7.9mm. Also, it was suggested that the new Nokia phone might have 5 lenses camera and a huge
3,800mAh battery with 6GB or 8GB of RAM. The phone might include an in-screen scanner along with iris
scanner and a 3D audio recording. The price of the new device could start from 560$ or 735$ depending on
the model version.
Android operating system is one of the most used operating systems when it comes to smart-phones. [28]
While Nokia was a bit late to jump on the bandwagon of Android, they are on a good track now. Other than
that, HMD Global is just another ordinary, mid-end phone with no particularly strong marketable feature.
Consumers would trust Nokia with its build quality, but they do need to compete on a higher level since the
competition for a good Android phone is getting stronger each year. At the end, Nokia is a good telecommu-
nication company and they still have the potential to go and dominate the market again if they will benefit
from the current opportunities. We must point out that Nokia’s brand value is on the rise. In 2018, according
to BrandZ Value analysis, Nokia’s brand value is estimated by 8.4 million dollars which is more than half of
what it was in the previous year. [29]
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Appendix
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nokia [1]
• http://nokiamob.net/2018/02/12/nokia-the-3rd-smartphone-brand-in-the-uk-q4-2017/ [2]
• https://blogs.windows.com/devices/2013/04/30/nokias-packaging-box-clever/ [3]
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_tune [4]
• https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/advertising/recap-how-nokia-connected-people-with-its-
ads-over-three-decades/55825449 [5]
• https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/04/nokias-10-year-decline-is-stark-but-its-brand-recognition-is-strong/ [6]
• https://community.phones.nokia.com/ [7]
• https://nokiapoweruser.com/nokia-community-gets-a-redesign-fans-a-chance-to-go-to-dubai-launch-event/ [8]
• https://networks.nokia.com/5g [9]
• https://networks.nokia.com/innovation/cloud [10]
• https://networks.nokia.com/innovation/iot [11]
• https://www.withings.com/us/en/health-institute [12]
• https://open-ecosystem.org/About [13]
• https://www.tum.de/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/detail/article/33398/ [14]
• https://www.statista.com/statistics/271496/global-market-share-held-by-smartphone-vendors-since-4th-quar-
ter-2009/ [15]
• http://nokiamob.net/2018/08/01/q2-2018-nokia-no-3-in-feature-phones-and-no-9-in-smartphones-globally/ [16]
• https://www.techradar.com/reviews/samsung-galaxy-note-9-review [17]
• https://www.gfk.com/insights/press-release/global-quarterly-smartphone-demand-down-year-on-year-though-rev-
enue-growth-remained-strong/ [18]
• Keller, K. L. (2008). Strategic brand management: Building, measuring, and managing brand equity. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. [19]
• https://nokiapoweruser.com/nokia-claims-95-brand-awareness-hmd-raised-internal-sales-forecast-based-on-feed-
back/ [19.1]
• https://hbr.org/2011/02/the-real-cause-of-nokias-crisi.html [20]
• Huy, Q. (2015) Who Killed Nokia? Nokia Did. INSEAD Knowledge [22]
• https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/business/apple-nokia-patents.html [23]
• https://www.pinoytechblog.com/archives/nokia-says-beware-of-nokla-and-copycats [24]
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY [25]
• https://www.networkworld.com/article/3319519/lan-wan/bell-labs-nokias-future-x-5g-networking-will-spark-a-
push-to-boost-business-productivity.html [26]
• https://nokiapoweruser.com/5g-compliant-nokia-smartphones-coming-2019/ [27]

• http://sourcedigit.com/1913-smartphone-os-global-market-share-data-2014/ [21]

14
• https://www.nielsen.com/ . Social Media Report recently published by Nielsen and NM Incite [9]

15
• https://blog.globalwebindex.com/chart-of-the-day/nokia-desirability-in-decline/ [19.3]

• https://blog.globalwebindex.com/chart-of-the-day/nokia-desirability-in-decline/ [19.4]

16
• https://mobiili.fi/2018/03/03/nokia-mobiilimessuviikon-ykkosbrandi-somessa-samsungin-galaxy-s9-mainituin-tu-
ote/ [19.2] [19.5]

17
• Android Operating System Users. https://www.statista.com/ [28]

• Global Top 100 Brands 2018. http://brandz.com/charting/54 [29]

18
References
• Nokia’s Logo History

• Mäkelä, M. (Producer), & Koskinen, A. (Director). (2018). The Rise and Fall of Nokia [Motion picture]. Unit-
ed Kingdom: BBC.

• HMD Global, Home of Nokia Mobile Phones.

https://www.hmdglobal.com/

• Nokia announced its Q3 2018 results on October 25, 2018. Our earnings materials, including the earnings state-
ment, investor call presentation and financial tables in Excel format will be found in the link below.
https://www.nokia.com/about-nokia/investors/reports-and-filings/

• A tour of game changing Nokia Bell Labs innovation at Mobile World Congress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUjAnedIIvM

• ETTelecom interviews Ajey Mehta Country Head, HMD Global (Nokia)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RnQlI1hql0

• Why Does Nokia Exist in 2018?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL7em34jMUE

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