Nokia N95 Cell Phone Marketing

Nokia N95 Cell Phone Marketing Plan

This is a marketing plan for the introduction of the Nokia N95 Cell Phone. A serious entry into the burgeoning field of PDA's, or Personal Digital Assistants, the N95 includes all of the tools which are necessary to be competitive with the leaders in this segment of the market, including sync with PC's, GPS for localization and direction finding, and a series of other features which are necessary to the business user.

The N95 is meant to compete with PDA and messaging manufacturers, such as BlackBerry, Palm Treo Series, HP, Samsung and a series of other manufacturers who have been producing PDA's and adding phone characteristics. New entrants to this market segment include heavyweights Apple and Microsoft. Apple's direction is coming from the multimedia side, while Microsoft is able to employ its strength in office and server software to help drive adoption.

The following pages will detail how to define and track the target segments, how to work with the product, services and accessories in a way that rounds out the strategy, and how to build the franchise to win sustainable competitive advantage. The accompanying budget suggests that this product will become contribution positive in the second quarter after introduction, and that it could return significant margins to the corporation in the second and third year.

Executive Summary

Presents a brief summary of the main goals and recommendations of the plan for management review, helping top management to find the plan's major points quickly. A table of contents should follow the executive summary.

Nokia is at a crossroads. It has put its major 'traditional' competitors, Sony-Ericsson, Siemens and Motorola, behind it as it has marched to 40% market share in 2007. The company has pursued unit market share globally, with the fastest-growing areas in Africa and Asia also the areas with the lowest ASP.

Nokia has two major risks: it could become a commodity supplier of lower-value handsets as it continues to gain share in lower-priced markets; at the same time, it is facing competition from companies which were outside the cell phone industry, including Apple, Microsoft, Intel and others. These companies look at the cell phone not only as a communications device for voice, but also as a computer which is broadly connected to the Internet and to desktop and laptop computers. If those companies are successful in redefining the high-end phone, Nokia will face an uphill battle in maintaining its lead.

The N95 represents an opportunity to Nokia to redress two problems -- its drift to lower-priced phones, and its lack of market share in the United States. By carefully targeting two segments, "road warriors" and large organization (corporate, government) users, Nokia can regain its reputation in this crucial segment.