After the Nokia brand surpassed Motorola in 2008, it quickly declined within less than three years. We could say that Nokia followed the same old path as Motorola. Why did Nokia, renowned for its quality, decline so rapidly? Apart from the changes in consumer trends and the rise of counterfeit and smartphones impacting the Nokia brand, what else is worth reflecting upon? Here, I will analyze the reasons for the fall of the Nokia empire from the perspective of a simple, loyal Nokia consumer.
Recently, I read news saying that Microsoft wanted to acquire Nokia's mobile phone division for $19 billion. Nokia phones have already started declining; sales in China have been getting worse year by year, and the head of the China region has just resigned. This made me feel very shocked - is this excellent brand really going to decline like this? I still remember three years ago, I was happily evaluating how Nokia had ascended to the top throne of the mobile phone empire. I never expected that in less than three years, Nokia would follow in Motorola's footsteps. As a loyal Nokia consumer, I feel extremely regretful and heartbroken. So, what caused Nokia to rise so quickly and then fall just as fast?
Many profound truths I do not wish to discuss. Today, I only want to talk about why Nokia fell so quickly from the perspective of an ordinary, loyal Nokia consumer. Do you remember Nokia's well-known advertising slogan? "Technology with a human touch." I always felt this phrase was quite vague, but since experts all said it was good, I accepted it without question. This phrase once became the core of Nokia's brand image, yet the products and image that Nokia conveyed were not necessarily so humane or technologically advanced. Looking at all the Nokia phones I've used, the last one being the N81, many of its products lacked user-friendliness. For example, it was too bulky and not thin enough, and when changing the battery, the time settings would reset, which was a very frustrating problem. Since this was a system setting, I could only silently accept it. But just the fact that changing the battery resets the time was enough to lose many high-end customers. This obvious lack of user-friendliness in design was something that Nokia, with its "technology with a human touch," failed to notice and correct, which greatly upset me, someone who tests software programs for a living.
It could be said that this was actually the beginning of Nokia's downfall. Because Nokia's products were so good, they wouldn't break no matter how much they were dropped, and durability became synonymous with Nokia phones. Additionally, Nokia's distribution channels were impeccable. After Motorola's decline, Nokia's network and channels were undoubtedly the strongest, so this wasn't an issue. In terms of brand, Nokia could be considered quite reputable, captivating many people, including myself. Therefore, the biggest problem was the lack of advanced technology in the brand. This was the fatal flaw of the entire Nokia brand. In the past era where quality was key, Nokia could win consumers and the market with its robust quality. However, in today's fast-paced technological world, Nokia couldn't surpass its competitors in technological content and lead market trends, leaving only the path of decline.
Mobile phones, as a technological product accessible to everyone today, are first and foremost about technology, and secondly about communication. However, Nokia seemed to have inverted this attribute, simply designing phones as communication tools while ignoring the connection between phones and cutting-edge technology. Thus, although Nokia could design durable mobile phones, it couldn't produce mobile tech products that satisfied the rapidly advancing needs of people. Although Nokia possessed solid communication product technology, due to the lack of advanced software technology, it couldn't integrate with frontier market technologies, causing its products to repeatedly lag behind new-tech companies. The market was also repeatedly divided by newly entering software companies, and its brand influence was continuously challenged by new forces.
Therefore, when...