#HMD could convert 2.85B feature phone users into #Nokia smartphone users

In his recent article about the mobile market, Nokia analyst Tomi Ahonem shared some interesting information about the usage of smartphones and feature phones on the market. Per Tomi’s data, there are 2.85 billion feature phones and 2.95 billion smartphones in usage on the planet.

For some years, the sales of feature phones have been going down, but it still is a fairly huge market, and currently the only market Nokia’s exclusive licensee HMD Global is doing business on.

Even  before Nokia sold its Devices and Services Business to Microsoft, there was a plan to gradually convert Nokia feature phone users to Nokia smartphones, and that strategy was realised with the affordable Asha Touch series of devices. HMD could try to do the same thing.

From the 2.85 billion feature phones in usage, we can conservatively estimate that Nokia phones make up the most. When a feature phone user goes to buy his first smartphone, he will firstly look at a familiar brand, like Nokia, Samsung or LG.

The huge number of feature phones in usage represents a big potential for sales of Nokia-branded Android smartphones. If we look at the rumors, HMD’s first Nokia Android device could be a midrange smartphone with an “aggressive” price point, that will, if true, make a decent first smartphone.