HMD aims at top 3 for Nokia phones’ UK marketshare in a year
HMD Global’s UK and Ireland general manager Sarah Edge, who previously worked at HTC and Sony, gave an interview for mobilenewscwp.com about HMD’s plans for the UK and Irish market. Sarah stated that, considering how good the current lineup was received, HMD could become one of the top 3 manufacturers in the UK.
Sarah already says that HMD is No.3 best sold brand at a major retailer after only two weeks of sales. She predicts that in 12 months period HMD could get to the third spot on UK’s (and Ireland’s) phone market.
Mobilenewscwp spoke to some analyst about HMD’s plans and their opinions range from optimistic to realistic. “GfK’s Tech360 report for Q1 has revealed that Nokia Phones has the second highest consideration (16 percent) among consumers after Sony among the challenger brands outside of Apple and Samsung,” writes mobilenewscwp.
CCS Insight chief of research Ben Wood said: “If they get Carphone Warehouse and all the major operator behind them, there is certainly a chance they can hit the top five but getting to top three is a very ambitious goal when you have companies all in the mix and competing for that share.
“There is no question that the Nokia brand has a lot of recognition in the UK market and that will give them an advantage over someone like Huawei, but it requires a significant financial commitment.”
IDC research director for European mobile devices in EMEA Francisco Jeronimo agreed: “They would need to sell around two million units over the course of the year to take the number three spot.
“It’s too ambitious because Huawei is growing well and might have more money to invest at the point of sale. However, if HMD doesn’t achieve their target in 12 months, they could do it within 18-24 months.”
However, GfK director of technology Imran Choudhary was slightly more optimistic, adding: “Their target is potentially realistic considering they have really good brand consideration here.
“It will be interesting to see how they execute their strategy and go to market with it but when you look at the UK landscape, a number of challenger brands have got to number three so they have a fighting chance.”
It will be interesting to see how HMD will advance in UK’s phone market, especially with the announced marketing initiative. Nokia held 20% of the Business market and 10% of consumer market with the Lumia line, and it surely could get it back with Andriod.
Source: MobileNewsCWP
