Gadgetory

coming out of CES this week with the announcement made on the Lumia 900 and a month ago we announced the Lumia 710 and by the way that 710 is for sale and t-mobile stores tomorrow so the level of excitement optimism incredibly high highest I've ever seen in any of my business life I think people are excited I think we have a differentiated product differentiated value we can bring to the consumer now it's about great execution so still a lot of heavy lifting to be done but I think we've set the foundation for our turnaround in the US now I think the first thing that that is quite clear in the u.s. in this journey on our turnaround is our strategy which is windows phones with operators so very simple very focused and what that means though is bringing unique devices and experiences and business models to each of the operators we're working with so they have something differentiated they can offer their consumers that is the most important part so differentiated and exclusive devices and business models that allows us to get the right operator support to launch these devices and so if you think about the Lumia 710 unbelievable support we're getting from t-mobile starting tomorrow you're going to their 24 hundred stores we have prominent placement in the stores they're going to be doing above the line marketing we'll be doing marketing as well to tell the story but it that type of business model is what's going to make us successful here because we're doing things unique and exclusive for each of those operators so we haven't made any decisions on them yet i think that the one question i got when i came in in February's how committed is nokia to the US market will you do exclusive things here unique and will you bring those to the US first you don't have to look any further than the 900 that we announced it will be here first it says our first windows LTE phone and it is built for the windows market or the US market and particularly AT&T so we haven't made any other announcements but I think what you'll see to continue that happens at nokia is our portfolio across price points user experiences and operators in the US will continue to expand and obviously you can expect to see that same thing bully so I don't think we're talking about number of design language would I say it's greater than one but you're not going to see you know double digit design language but we do think we have a couple unique design languages that will continue to evolve and develop it against and I think the backdrop of that is creating head-turning designs for consumers and then using that design language to really expand to think about what are the user experiences that we're trying to create what are the value proposition the messaging the business models that we ultimately want to work with carriers to give something that's differentiated and unique to that end user well I think what we have stated publicly is we want to take the windows portfolio at Nokia and drive the price down lower and even move it up on the high end so across the spectrum I think there's still a huge play in the US on price and taking that down as well as going upward I mean if you think about the the 710 and one of the beauties is we pack a ton of value in here for 49 bucks so incredibly low price because if you think about the dynamics in the u.s. there's still more people who don't own a smartphone than do now that's rapidly changing because every day you get more smartphone users on but price is a big part of why people haven't moved and it's priced both on acquisition cost of the device and the plan itself and then obviously making the technology for people to on board a lintel but I think that's the unique value proposition that note you can bring and bring that global scale I'm if you think about this is the first device we're bringing in the US and the price point value were put in here I think is unmatched well I think the primary reason is in order to be successful here you've got to have support and commitment from the operators and so doing that unlocked I think it does two things you lose that support support could be marketing retail presence subsidy against the phone but it makes it very hard to be competitive from price perspective if you don't have that operator support and so again we've narrowed our folks and strategies say it's Windows smart phones with operators everything will do is to create that unique value proposition for the operators that they can take to their customers for us at this point it's really important that we're focused on the strategy is going to get us the market share the quickest and where the predominant majority of the business is and that's absolutely through operators and so one of the keys is it's very easy to get the focused on a strategy and say well let's go focus over here we can pick up a little bit here a little bit here the majority of the business in the u.s. is through operators and we're going to be myopically focused on that well first of all what I'd say is I think the partnerships off to a great start maybe you think about it we announced it februari 11th we actually got the deal signed after that in less than six months they delivered two phones in Europe and now we've delivering one tomorrow in the US and we just announced another one so we feel very good on that mango was essentially done when we announced the partnership so our input is really you know moving forward mango LT I think is a good example of the collaboration that happened between Microsoft and Nokia we feel good about it and I think moving forward you'll continue to see that collaboration our input on the portfolio broadly I think will be will be felt yes so I think one of the things that we have sort of redone is how we bring value to operators and it's not just about a device a piece of hardware I think it's about a set of experiences it's a value proposition and those experiences our hardware capabilities software cloud services and accessories all that together I think we're thinking about this in a holistic way so you talk about accessories and really bringing unique value propositions that the operators can offer the consumers that's a good business model for the operators and then you can also think about it particularly like with our monster headsets here not only bring in a value proposition something unique for consumers but you bring a really cool brand in that's good both for nokia and the operators and so I think it's twofold it's a business model and being able to offer something different to consumers but it's also about bringing in some really prominent different cool brands that I think is beneficial to all parties yes so we haven't announced any further plans other than the 710 with tmobile 900 with ATT I will restate what I've said since the beginning for 2012 is we're committed to a broad portfolio devices across multiple price points multiple operators multiple user experiences and we've used this saying internally called Rolling Thunder which is really this concept that we want the noise get louder and louder the portfolio broadens and our marketing efforts really kick into gear and again I think what we're announcing today with the 900 what we announced and our shipping starting tomorrow at seven ten that's the start of our journey I think you can expect that to broaden over time I think there is a big demand and room and desire to basically get to lower-cost LTE phones is what I'd say and do correct and to do it with an experience that's not compromised for the user because I would argue today is where that's happened with LT on some other platforms the experience has not been great and consistent and integrated seamless way for the consumers and so we look forward to doing that in a broader perspective but we're not announcing anything so is it fair to say that LTE is a very strong focus for us presence absolutely i mean i think if you look at the trends with the operators and where the technology is going and the fact that we just announced our first LTE phone LTE is a high priority for us one of the things that we did in the 900 I mean it's single core but the performance on this I'd put up against any dual or quad core phone so the performance on this phone it's fast it's responds with incredible it's LTE but I don't think you sacrifice on the battery life because of the dual cores or quad cores etc on top of that we're putting in an eighteen hundred and thirty million milliamp battery and it's one of the biggest we've ever put in so that I think the statement we can make to users is you can focus on your content during the day without having to worry about charging or recharging so we feel really good about what we're seeing but we're still also in the process of testing etc and I think we'll have more to say as we move forward i think in i think it's the same which is i think it can be a huge differentiator for us and you'll see it so when we launched these phones like on the tmobile 710 it'll come with nokia drive which is the industry-leading best turn-by-turn navigation system that's about a two hundred dollar value we provide free as part of the the apps that we preload on the phone ESPN is a unique app that nokia with Windows Phone users get exclusive to them you'll see a whole host of those type applications either be pre-loaded on the phone are available in the marketplace under nokia election for nokia with Windows users so you know we talked about ESPN nokia drive things like Univision EA sports announced about 20 tiles the titles that will have exclusivity for about a six month period you'll see unique things from CNN from Muppets etc soho lyssa so i think that ecosystem we're seeing incredible interest from significant brands to do some unique things with us and again some of those might be unique for a period of time someone might be unique for longer but that overall app ecosystem content i think will be a significant differentiator for nokia well what's interesting is it on this one just be clear is the radar what you see traditionally is ninety nine dollars the 710 will be forty nine dollars in the data we show that fifty dollars particularly for the smartphone and tenders that's a big delta for people are jumping into the smartphone business so we do think it's a significant price difference from the 99 249 i call it a combination of price and value because then what we pack into the phone and he's quite significantly this has a 1.4 gigahertz process the same that's in the 900 or the 800 so there's a lot of horsepower underneath the hood here when you combine that with price combine it with the value-add like nokia drive then one other thing i call tying the bow on it something nokia is doing unique is it's called Smart Start so anybody who buys a nokia with Windows Phone they basically get access to a nokia customer care person so what happens if you walk into mall tomorrow and you by tomorrow and you buy this phone they'll give you a card gives you a website to go to you'll register tell it tell us who you are when you want us to call and then you check box say here's what I want to talk about email setup social network integration you tell us and basically you'll get a live person call you at that time we can walk you through whether its initial setup advanced tips and tricks you just want to get more enjoyment out of the device really trying to make that experience world-class and so those are the things we talked about price value and the overall experience is the way we're going to differentiate ourselves I think it's the same message which is let's focus on the value that's in that device and I think you start with head-turning design or iconic design you talk about the quality and the capabilities in the device you talk about the uniqueness of the does phone system which is unique compared to the competitive ecosystems out there it's not a static set of icons and apps it's these live tiles and hubs and seamlessly integrated so you focus on that and then when you talk about nokia not only the design the imaging technology you talk about the value add things like the Smart Start whether it's the Nokia drive thing it's the applications etc we pack a whole set of value in there but it's the total story that we have to talk about versus one specific thing and one final very important question will we see more devices available in multiple colors because the cyan Lumia 900 is the best-looking but I've ever seen thank you that's awesome yeah I what I will tell you is the company overall historically has at a large part to play in colors we will make it a key part of our relaunch in the US and I think you'll continue to see us emphasize colors more and more both in the devices the marketing etc the accessories and you see sort of the magenta headsets and black headsets you'll see cyan as well colors will be a key differentiator for us and we think that's really important whether it's in our marketing message whether the device that people are using or in the retail presence there so I appreciate the comment on Sian and I think that confirms that we're on the right path there