Nokia bets Americans want all-purpose cell phones
In one vision of the near future, Americans will rely on a smart-phone as their all-purpose gadget. Making calls will be almost an occasional activity compared with using phones for Web browsing, e-mail, photographs, music downloads, shopping, global positioning services and games.
But in another scenario, consumers will stubbornly resist paying for more expensive phones and services that still face technical hurdles, including limited battery power and the need for better networks.
Nokia, the giant Finnish phone maker that has been expanding its Silicon Valley operations, is betting on the first vision as it transforms itself into an Internet company as well as a device manufacturer.
To make that transition, which will hinge on providing easy access to a huge range of digital services, the company is looking closely at research that hints at dramatic changes in the behavior of U.S. consumers. Many Americans may actually be eager to turn their cell phones into a hub for all personal technology.
The current U.S. smart-phone market is dominated by the Research In Motion Blackberry (44.5 percent as of the first quarter of the year), followed by Apple's iPhone (19.2 percent), according to the research firm IDC. Nokia isn't in the top five but says it's developing products and strategies to make future inroads in North America.
One of the most in-depth Nokia research projects involves tracking the keystroke usage of people using its high-end phones - roughly 1,000 consumers per group - in Europe, Asia and the United States. The company also does face-to-face interviewing with customers in more than a dozen countries every month, but the keystroke research is "invaluable to us," said Daniel Shugrue, one of Nokia's marketing specialists.
When Nokia compared keystroke usage by European users to a U.S. group, it got a surprise: Some Americans were using non-calling services and applications at a much heavier rate than the Europeans. That flew in the face of long-held assumptions about Europeans (and Asians) being ahead of Americans in using mobile phones for more than calling.
In the European research, Nokia put users in three categories, based on how many megabytes of data they were sending or receiving per month for activities such as e-mail, picture mail, Web browsing or downloading customized features (ringtones, for example). Usage was divided as 0-to-2 megabytes per month, 2-to-4 and more than 4.
In the United States, Nokia planned on using the same categories. But it had to redefine the one measuring the heaviest data traffic. That's because it found the top-end users typically going over 8 megabytes a month. There also were indications, based on applications that Americans downloaded in addition to the ones pre-installed on the phone, of a greater willingness to experiment and customize than Europeans showed.
"It doesn't surprise me at all," said Frank Dickson, chief research officer for MultiMedia Intelligence, a business consulting firm in Scottsdale, Ariz. "A lot of what we've learned from the Internet is migrating to the handset. We're seeing a natural progression among people who want to share and communicate in the way they have on the Internet."
Nokia's keystroke research involves phone buyers who volunteer for the study and tends to draw in early adopters, said Shugrue, who heads the "consumer engagement" team for smart-phones running on Nokia's S60 software. Nokia touts the S60 software as conducive to a wide range of hardware designs and mobile services and applications.
"The keystrokes," said Shugrue, "tell us what applications are launched, how long the applications are launched for, how much data is consumed overall and by each application, when the phone itself is turned on or off, when there are phone calls . . . just about everything you can imagine that can be measured is measured."
Nokia emphasized that there are no conclusions to draw about the entire U.S. cell phone market based on the keystroke research from early adopters of high-end phones and mobile technology. But it suggests a coming shift in consumer behavior that Nokia anticipates for many reasons.
"And that's the shift," said Shugrue, "we're in the middle of as a company from making handsets to also focusing on software services."
source
But in another scenario, consumers will stubbornly resist paying for more expensive phones and services that still face technical hurdles, including limited battery power and the need for better networks.
Nokia, the giant Finnish phone maker that has been expanding its Silicon Valley operations, is betting on the first vision as it transforms itself into an Internet company as well as a device manufacturer.
To make that transition, which will hinge on providing easy access to a huge range of digital services, the company is looking closely at research that hints at dramatic changes in the behavior of U.S. consumers. Many Americans may actually be eager to turn their cell phones into a hub for all personal technology.
The current U.S. smart-phone market is dominated by the Research In Motion Blackberry (44.5 percent as of the first quarter of the year), followed by Apple's iPhone (19.2 percent), according to the research firm IDC. Nokia isn't in the top five but says it's developing products and strategies to make future inroads in North America.
One of the most in-depth Nokia research projects involves tracking the keystroke usage of people using its high-end phones - roughly 1,000 consumers per group - in Europe, Asia and the United States. The company also does face-to-face interviewing with customers in more than a dozen countries every month, but the keystroke research is "invaluable to us," said Daniel Shugrue, one of Nokia's marketing specialists.
When Nokia compared keystroke usage by European users to a U.S. group, it got a surprise: Some Americans were using non-calling services and applications at a much heavier rate than the Europeans. That flew in the face of long-held assumptions about Europeans (and Asians) being ahead of Americans in using mobile phones for more than calling.
In the European research, Nokia put users in three categories, based on how many megabytes of data they were sending or receiving per month for activities such as e-mail, picture mail, Web browsing or downloading customized features (ringtones, for example). Usage was divided as 0-to-2 megabytes per month, 2-to-4 and more than 4.
In the United States, Nokia planned on using the same categories. But it had to redefine the one measuring the heaviest data traffic. That's because it found the top-end users typically going over 8 megabytes a month. There also were indications, based on applications that Americans downloaded in addition to the ones pre-installed on the phone, of a greater willingness to experiment and customize than Europeans showed.
"It doesn't surprise me at all," said Frank Dickson, chief research officer for MultiMedia Intelligence, a business consulting firm in Scottsdale, Ariz. "A lot of what we've learned from the Internet is migrating to the handset. We're seeing a natural progression among people who want to share and communicate in the way they have on the Internet."
Nokia's keystroke research involves phone buyers who volunteer for the study and tends to draw in early adopters, said Shugrue, who heads the "consumer engagement" team for smart-phones running on Nokia's S60 software. Nokia touts the S60 software as conducive to a wide range of hardware designs and mobile services and applications.
"The keystrokes," said Shugrue, "tell us what applications are launched, how long the applications are launched for, how much data is consumed overall and by each application, when the phone itself is turned on or off, when there are phone calls . . . just about everything you can imagine that can be measured is measured."
Nokia emphasized that there are no conclusions to draw about the entire U.S. cell phone market based on the keystroke research from early adopters of high-end phones and mobile technology. But it suggests a coming shift in consumer behavior that Nokia anticipates for many reasons.
"And that's the shift," said Shugrue, "we're in the middle of as a company from making handsets to also focusing on software services."
source
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