The Nokia Story–Is It Really Game Over For Them?

Many of us reading this would probably have lived through the Nokia age possessing one of their handphones. In the past, there was no Siri Iphone, no Samsung Galaxy or even any touchphone at all. We started the use of handphones with these small bulky objects, with over a dozen keys and a screen so small you may have had to stare at it closely to see of your phone’s content. In fact, Nokia dominated the phone market, and it was never apparent that Nokia would reach its stage of struggling to survive as it is today. So, with their once achieved brilliance in phone innovation and design as well as the durability of their phones, will they be able to pull of a hat trick to ensure their survival or will they fall into a pit of no return?

 

Nokia The Legend

Nokia had produced so many of the typical traditional handphones, and each was really well-received. Owning a Nokia phone became the in thing of its time, like today’s Iphone or Samsung Galaxy. It was very popular for many years, being durable, long-lasting and being multi-functional, with applications like games, calendars with to do note saving functions, alarms and even music players being incorporated into these phones over its years of dominance. Later on, the above model, the infamous Nokia 3310, was released. It is known to indestructible for the phone could be dropped, smashed by something heavy and even be exposed to water, and still had an extremely high chance of still being able to work. Like other Nokia phones, it was very useful, as it had many useful applications and was extremely easy to use, and also not forgetting its extremely long battery life. Nokia was truly a legend in its prime.

 

The Fall Of Nokia

In the recent years, other companies like apple introduced touchphones. The age of touchphones had begun, and people began to favour the thinner and less bulkier touchphones that was much easier to use in terms of operating the phone. The touchphones also had a better display, and the vibrant clear displays of those touchphones soon caught on with the best Nokia phones, eventually phasing them out in the phone market. The wider variety of more appealing applications of these new phones, along with other innovations such as the new blackberry phones drove the traditional Nokia phones out of their competitive edge in the phone market. Nokia’s profits took a big hit, and their business was ebbing away slowly but surely.

 

Nokia’s Counterattack

Nokia refused to be beaten so easily, and they soon came up with their own touchphones. These touchphones were just as easy to use and almost as durable and long lasting as their predecessors, and their displays and applications could rival that of their rivals. However, they were still beaten as people still saw Nokia phones as the old bulky keypad phone, and never saw their touchphones to be of the same kind as other touchphones. Furthermore, the speed of the Nokia phones was still slightly slower, and the lack of many popular services and applications set them back. 

However, recently, Nokia released the Asha model of touchphones as shown above, and the positive traits of the old Nokia coupled with durability put into a modern touchphone, and is priced extremely economically. A modern touchphone which could be afforded by the less well off proved to be a perfect selling point, and the sales of the Asha could be compared to the old Nokia phones. 

For those who could pay more, Nokia released the Lumia series, which operated with a windows system. The impressive operating speed and display of the Lumia, as well as its ability to assist a working person with its windows function made the Lumia unique. Just like for all the other touchphones it released, Nokia also never forgot its basics, and hence the Lumia is also extremely durable, easy to use and has good battery life times. While the success of these phones cannot be charted yet, I do hope that this will be a stepping stone to Nokia’s return to its prime in the future, for it would be sad to see the presence of the brand with the most durable and usable phones fade away. 

With their new releases, who knows? Perhaps Nokia would be saved, or perhaps it would continue with its downward trend? Only with time we will know.