Nokia Mobile doing well in India and plans to launch a 5G mass market phone by end of 2021

In an interview with ET, HMD Global’s Vice President for MENA and India Sanmeet Kochhar affirmed Nokia Mobile’s commitment to the Indian market, reiterated info about recent ODM deals, but also revealed something about financials. HMD’s VP also spoke to FT few weeks ago in a bit lengthier interview saying almost the same things.

The similar issues discussed were Nokia Mobile’s commitment in making India a manufacturing and distribution hub for Nokia phones, with deals with “home-grown contract Electronics Manufacturing Services” like Lava and Dixon. ET’s article also says that Nokia Mobile is preparing a more affordable 5G smartphone for 2021, which was also indicated with the recent launch of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 480.

A new tidbit mentioned in the interview regards Nokia Mobile’s performance in India. While we didn’t get any numbers regarding financial results, Mr. Kochhar said “We had a sustainable and profitable year in India in 2020.”, and that it is about it. Considering HMD Global isn’t a publicly traded company, it is hard to verify financial statements, but it is good to know that in a challenging year like 2020, operations in India where in the green according to the VP.

While I am somewhat excited for an affordable 5G smartphone, I still crave for a top of the line, high-end Nokia flagship device. The Nokia 8.3 5G was a good step in that direction, but there are aspects to improve. I’m not insisting on a 1000 dollars price tag, but offering a high end package for 700 dollars is also ok, because I feel most of the recently announced devices target the budget segment, that is attractive to a wide portion of the market, but you cannot really show the best you can do on a budget handset. What do you think?