Nokia’s new flagship smartphone, the Lumia 920, will go on the market next month, and in the United States it will be available only on AT&T.
This story is familiar: Last time, AT&T was the only American carrier to sell Nokia’s flagship Lumia 900, which didn’t sell well. So why does AT&T keep getting the goods?
To be fair, the iPhone was initially an exclusive for AT&T. That worked out well for Apple because the carrier, in exchange, aggressively promoted the then-revolutionary smartphone in its stores and ad campaigns to give it a big boost. Later, the iPhone became available on Verizon Wireless, Sprint and many other carriers around the globe to become the best-selling smartphone in the world.For Nokia, however, the odds are stacked against it. The smartphone market is crowded with iPhones and many popular Android phones. And Nokia’s Lumia phones include a less-popular feature: Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system. Pairing with one carrier won’t give it the same push that Apple got.
Nokia and AT&T have not disclosed a price for the Lumia 920.
Susan Sheehan, a Nokia spokeswoman, said in an interview that the company was glad that AT&T had committed to marketing the Lumia 920 and training retail employees on selling the phone. She hinted that there would be partnerships soon with other carriers but declined to go into detail about what phones the deals would be for.
“We are really excited about the commitment that AT&T is expressing for the 920, and we think that it’s going to be a great launch with them,” she said. “At the same time, there’s a lot of passion and energy from customers across the United States, so we’re looking forward to making other announcements with different operators in the weeks and months to come.”
Nokia very likely gave AT&T the exclusive to get its marketing support, which could make or break the device because people may not have heard of it otherwise, said Jan Dawson, a mobile analyst at Ovum. In addition, the Finnish phone maker has a poor track record for making good phones for CDMA, the technology used by Verizon’s and Sprint’s cell networks, so it’s unlikely those carriers wanted to sell the Lumia 920 at all, Mr. Dawson explained.
With the Lumia 900, Nokia’s previous flagship phone, AT&T backed it with what it called its biggest phone introduction in history, which included giant posters in stores, TV commercials and even a Nicki Minaj concert. After all that, Nokia sold only 600,000 Lumia 900 phones and later cut the price of the smartphone in half.
Apple, on the other hand, recently sold five million iPhone 5s on the first weekend the model arrived in stores.
-->
Post a Comment