Nokia phones officially re-enter the Argentinian market
|Some time ago we were covering unofficial info that HMD is preparing a return of the Nokia brand to the smartphone market of Argentina. Microsoft exited that market 4 years ago and now we have it official – Nokia smartphones are back in Argentina.
To gain share there, HMD decided to set up local assembly, because Argentina has high tariffs on imported cell phones. HMD kicked off the Nokia story in Argentina with a 30 million (US?) dollar investment and hiring 200 people. The first devices available in Argentina should be the Nokia 1 and the Nokia 3 (2017), with Nokia 6.1 coming soon (in July). The first batch of devices will be imported, because local manufacturing starts in 2 months in Tierra del Fuego. HMD plans to bring more phones from their lineup to Argentina soon, probably after they establish good logistics there.
Nokia 1 is priced at 4399 ARS (150 euros), Nokia 3 at 6499 ARS (220 euros), with the Nokia 6.1 at 12,999 ARS (440 euros). Really high prices and it will be interesting to see if they will go down when local manufacturing starts.
There is also a local Nokia.com/phones page for users in Argentina that you can visit by clicking here. If the site redirects you to your local page or the global page, find the “choose your language option” on the site and find Argentina.
I really hope the next market HMD will expand to will be Brazil. Not only is it a huge market, but the brand there is really strong thanks to Nokia’s historic presence there and based on social media, Nokia’s return is highly requested there.