As the second largest mobile market in the world, India presents great opportunities for device manufacturers. However, it is a developing country with a demographic that covers every imaginable socioeconomic strata, which has made it very hard for manufacturers that are not based in India to figure out the market. The announcement by HMD, the Finish company that has licensed the Nokia brand, to introduce the Nokia (News - Alert) 6, Nokia 5, Nokia 3 and Nokia 3310 line of phones to India offers a range of devices with different price points to address this complicated market.
The re-introduction of Nokia under HMD to India comes after the brand lost its No. 1 global position in the mobile market. And one of the phones that made Nokia so popular is the 3310, which was dubbed as the 'Indestructible phone' and it is still in use in many developing countries. In terms of brand recognition and loyalty, the Nokia name still carries a lot of weight, and HMD is looking to capitalize on it.
After HMD announced the Nokia 6, Nokia 5, Nokia 3 and Nokia 3310 at Mobile World Congress (News - Alert) earlier this year in Barcelona, the phones will finally arrive in India during the month of June in a staggered release. Although the price for the Indian market hasn't been announced, the price in the UK is as follows for all the phones.
The Nokia 3 is listed at 149.99 pounds (around Rs 12,400) or $193.67; the Nokia 6 for 229.99 pounds (around Rs 19,000) or $296.96; the Nokia 5 for 189.99 pounds (around Rs 15,700) or $245.32; and the Nokia 3310 for 59.99 pounds (around Rs 4,900) or $77.46.
The Nokia 6 has a Qualcomm (News - Alert) Snapdragon 430 processor, 5.5-inch full HD display, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a 16MP rear and an 8MP front cameras.
The Nokia 5 also has the Snapdragon 430 processor along with a 5.2-inch 720p HD display, 2GB of RAM (News - Alert), 16GB of storage expandable via a microSD card, a 13MP rear and 8MP front cameras.
The Nokia 3310 has been upgraded with a 2.4-inch display, a 2MP rear camera, microSD card support, 2G connectivity and 22 hour talk time and 30 days of standby time 1200MAh battery.
The Nokia 3 has a MTK 6737 quad-core processor, a 5.0-inch 720p HD display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, and 8MP front and rear cameras.
These phones will be competing against local brands that have entry level smartphones coming in at $50, and Google (News - Alert) CEO Sundar Pichai is pushing OEMs to develop smartphones for developing markets such as India for a mere $30. For the service side of the industry, $30 phones mean there will be hundreds of millions of new customers, but for device manufacturers such as HMD, being able to compete at these price points is going to be a tough road ahead.
Edited by Alicia Young