Nokia CEO admits failure to foresee fast-changing industry
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop speaks during the company’s news conference in Espoo. – Reuters
HELSINKI: Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop admitted on Thursday that his company had failed to foresee rapid changes in the mobile phone industry and this was partly behind the firm’s problems.
“We had moments in the past year and a half when we could have done some things differently had we known that the industry was changing so rapidly,” Elop told Finnish national daily Aamulehti.
One example of Nokia’s misreading of the markets “was the steep price decrease of Android phones in China,” he said.
“It happened so fast that Nokia’s situation has now become difficult, but we keep honing our strategy.”
Nokia recently lost the world number one ranking it had held for 14 years as it attempts to survive on the rapidly changing landscape, with stiff competition from RiM’s Blackberry, Apple’s iPhone and handsets running Google’s Android platform.
The company has been undergoing a major restructuring in the past 18 months, phasing out its Symbian line of smartphones in favour of a partnership with Microsoft.
It recently announced that massive new spending cuts and 10,000 more layoffs would be needed, in addition to the some 12,000 layoffs already announced in the past year and a half.
Adding to Nokia’s problems was an anouncement by Microsoft late last week that its Windows 8 upgrade would not work on Nokia’s new flagship smartphone, the Lumia 900 model which it launched earlier this year.
That caused Nokia’s share price to shed 10 per cent on Monday to 1.73 euros, its lowest point since August 1996 when it hit 1.71 euros, and down from 4.00 euros at the beginning of the year.
Nokia symbian os is more secure than androids. androids are more prone to spywares and viruses. android applications keep using network even when phone is idle. and they don’t ask for ppermission. so avoid using them for work like money transaction and using them to save secret information like bank account details.
Nokia is self responsible for it’s failure. it launched smartphones with ram as low as 64mb. and even high end phones with single core processors with speed 434 to 640 MHz. it’s high end phones has ram upto 256 mb. while android makers was launching phones with ram Upto 1gb and processors having clock speed of 1 to 1.5ghz and dual to quad cores. and ppi count near 300. even very low profile company lava launched phone with 1.6ghz processor. so people started thinking Nokia phones are too slow and ram deficient to be called smartphones. now Nokia should adopt android and use high ram , processor and capacitive screen with ppi count more than 250
The great survive by forging new trails not by imitating the enemy lines.. Nokia needs to have a technology better then Androids.. which can fortunately, never be as user friendly as Nokia is. Nokia can get bigger and better by perusing its old trends and improvising them to new perfection – Simpler, Exquisite new designs with diminutive colors may also bring a whole new shadow of glamour to the Phones. The softwares i would say indeed need improving, something with a more non-stuck up attitude that most smart phones have today. Width of the SmartPhones could be expanded to a certain level so that holding with both hands is easier. as class signifies. The charms layeth within. Nokia Camera's if boosted to a more clearer & bright level, this might just be a very hit-on point. Icing on Cake, Smart Phone covers to come with the Cellphone package.
Elop will elope with Microsoft soon. That was bound to happen as anyone who ties up with M$ goes down the drain of time
Nokia will soon find its place in the telecommunication graveyard next to segm and motorolla
Nokia should immediately adopt Android, if it is possible for them