Nokia Mobile is losing its brand loyalty in India, says 91mobiles 2020 survey

The gadget site 91mobiles conducted its annual Smartphone Buyer Insights Survey for the year 2020 in India. They tracked down the preferences and mindsets of more than 15000 respondents about smartphones.

Let us see what does the survey reveal:

Smartphone Ownership

Well, of the 15000+ respondents, only 2.4% (360+) of them own a Nokia smartphone. This year, Nokia Mobile also recorded a 1% fall in ownership share compared to the 2019 survey. Among the big brands, only Huawei (excluding Honor) is behind Nokia.

And, as one would expect, Xiaomi (excluding POCO), Samsung, and Realme are in the first three positions. Surprisingly, Xiaomi also recorded a 2% drop in ownership share. However, Realme recorded the highest gain of about 6%.

Brand Preference

This section reveals the brands that the users would opt for their next smartphone.

Again, the numbers are quite low for Nokia. In 2019 survey, about 5.1% were considering their next smartphone from Nokia. However, this year, only 1.7% would prefer a Nokia, which is about 3.4% of respondents that lost their interest in Nokia. Yet again, about 75% of the respondents would prefer a Samsung, Xiaomi (including POCO), Realme, or an OnePlus branded device.

Brand Loyalty

When HMD Global first arrived on the smartphone scene, its biggest bet was on Nokia brand’s popularity. However, now the brand loyalty for Nokia is on a downhill, at least in India. Of all the Nokia smartphone users, who participated in the survey, only 28% of them would buy their next phone from Nokia again.

That is a steep decrease of 19% compared to the previous year. Brands like OnePlus (67%), Apple (62%), Samsung (59%), Realme (56%), and Xiaomi (51%) have a loyalty rate of more than 50% among their users.

Gain for Brands

Many Nokia smartphone users would like to place their next bet on Samsung or OnePlus. Currently, among the ones who want to switch to Samsung, 21% of them use a Nokia smartphone. Similarly, among the ones who want to switch to OnePlus, 10% of them use a Nokia device. Interestingly, there are very few Nokia users who would like to switch to Xiaomi or Realme.

Conclusion

Currently, the brands like Xiaomi, Samsung, and Realme excel the stats, because of their all-around presence and their aggressively priced devices, along with a strong fan following. Even OnePlus and Apple have their reasons to celebrate. However, Huawei is facing the heat because of its exemption from the Google Play Services.

This also shows that Nokia Mobile has not been able to crack into the Indian market well enough, as they would have expected. The Nokia 6.1 Plus and Nokia 5.1 Plus created a huge sales number for Nokia in India, however, because of the hardware and some other issues, the buyers probably hopped on to some other brands.

Furthermore, Nokia smartphones are not the most aggressively priced, and that gives an edge to its rivals. Somehow, Nokia Mobile could not get the mind share of the buyers, and as a result, could not tilt their sentiment towards its side.

What do you think is Nokia Mobile missing out on? Share your views in the comments section below.

Do check the full insights of the survey here: 1, 2

Thank you singhnsk for sharing it with us. 😉