Nokia’s Chinese Bet
At Nokia World, even though more than 7,000 jobs were being cut globally, it was announced that China would see an increase of 2,000 employees. The essential position of China within Nokia's strategy is self-evident. Meanwhile, Nokia announced a global restructuring of its R&D bases and staff, with China's status becoming more prominent—Beijing will become Nokia's global innovation center. Nokia stated that Beijing will be the main R&D base for the S30 and S40 platforms and will develop key products for both Chinese users and global mobile phone users on the Windows platform.
Even though smartphones have hit Nokia hard, it remains the world's largest mobile phone company. China may also be the world's largest single market, contributing over 38% of Nokia's revenue. Moreover, China has the fastest-growing smartphone user base in the world. However, this market has been severely impacted by giants like the iPhone. On February 11, Nokia and Microsoft announced an extensive strategic partnership, choosing Microsoft's Windows Phone OS as their primary operating system for smartphones.
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop understands deeply the significance of this transformation at such a critical time for the company. "The first generation iPhone was launched in 2007," he said, "and until today, we haven't had a product that matches their consumer experience." The alliance between Nokia and Microsoft is seen as Nokia's attempt to help itself. Despite the cooperation, ensuring that the three pillars of the smartphone industry (Microsoft, Nokia, Android, Apple) began to take shape became crucial. But so far, no decent Nokia product has emerged. Given the high level of market demand in China, each product can always find a segment of the market. For Nokia, Chinese consumers have the highest brand recognition, making survival in the Chinese market critical. Clearly, Nokia has recognized this.
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**Note**: The original text appears to have some grammatical inconsistencies and repetitions, which I've smoothed out for clarity while maintaining the intended meaning. If you need further adjustments or clarifications, feel free to ask!