Ovi is reaching the world and doing well, but has issues in the US

I started this site back in January because I have a passion for Nokia devices and no matter how many super cool devices I use from other manufacturers I keep coming back to Nokia for several reasons as I listed in my recent Thanksgiving post. Om Malik had a chance to speak with Tero Ojanperä, Nokia’s EVP of Services, the other day and posted an article titled, For Nokia’s Ovi, the World (Minus the U.S.) Is Enough. As you can read in the article, the focus was on Nokia’s Ovi services and not on their hardware, although much of what was said can apply to Nokia’s hardware strategy in the US. Nokia reaches the world more than any other handset manufacturer and has to try to appeal across the board, which is not an easy task.

As Mr.Ojanperä stated, “We are competing for the mindshare, and in the U.S. it is critical and we need to be here and strengthen our presence. Currently, Ovi’s big opportunity is overseas, outside of the US.”

In my own experiences, the mindshare in the US seems to be closely tied to television advertising and I hear people talking about the iPhone and Motorola Droid more because of what they saw on TV than anything else. HTC kicked off a recent advertising campaign and I am now starting to get questions from people on this “new HTC company” (they are not new, but have been letting carriers brand their products for years). I would LOVE to see commercials from Nokia here in the US talking about their incredible products and services, but Nokia also needs some carrier support. There were a couple commercials and printed ads for the E71x and I think it did pretty well, but would have done better if AT&T wasn’t allowed to cripple it so much.

After playing with the N900 now for a month, I have to state that I was pleased when Mr.Ojanperä mentioned Nokia is not moving away from Symbian and just enabled a new game API-plugin. While I think the N900 is a nice product and has an amazing web browser, I still prefer S60 devices with all the great apps and other capabilities. Maemo has a way to go still to convince me it is ready for the high end Nseries market, but there is lots of potential there.

I am working on a post questioning why Nokia devices don’t appeal more to the US press and blogger community so stay tuned for that in the next couple of days, along with my full N97 mini review.

4 Comments to Ovi is reaching the world and doing well, but has issues in the US

Michael
December 1, 2009

Very well written post. I too wish/hope/pray that Nokia starts cranking up their advertising dollars here in the US.

Eric
December 1, 2009

I would think a smart advertising campaign with T-Mobile and or maybe Sprint as these 2 carriers are lagging in the carrier wars. Hot new devices and slick ads would boost them both. Another good attack would be low end devices again that are less expensive infiltraiting the market through pay-as-you-go services such as Boost or such. Another good way would be through services such as Cricket/Metro PCS with devices that compete with Blackberry. I’ve noticed people in those markets want those devices but are left behind. The 5800XM would be ideal as it is affordable as a full touch device! Just my 2 cents.

Dans
December 2, 2009

The things you mention will happen but its about timing. I would consider that when writing your piece, Q2 2010 onwards looks likely.

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