HMD turned two years old about a week ago.
The company owns the Nokia brand and in the past two years has been able to pull a spectacular comeback and is currently one of the largest global smartphone vendors.
This is however, not exactly a big deal for the company considering that about a decade ago it was the largest phone manufacturer. In comparison, Samsung sold 3 Billion units in 2017 alone.
Nevertheless, it’s no mean feat that the Finnish company was able to sell over 70 million smartphones in the last two years.
Looking at HMD’s lineup, it’s not difficult to see how they were able to pull it off. Nokia has cool smartphone. It’s easy to sell cool phones that have a competitive price.
For instance, the Nokia 7.1 is one of the best mind-range smartphones on the market right now. It’s therefore not a coincidence that the phone is currently the best selling HMD smartphone globally.
HMD is expected to do even better in the coming years considering the cult-like following that its buyers have towards the brand. P.S. Nokia recently launched a community forum for its fans.
What is noteworthy, however, is that Nokia has an aging customer base. Close to 80% of HMD customers are 35 years old and older. In the short-term this is a good thing. This is because the 35+ segment (in many countries) has customers who are willing to spend more when buying smartphones.
That state could however, be detrimental in the long-term as the customer base will be dwindling at a faster rate.
To counter-act on that, Nokia is looking into ways to make the brand rad. So far, this has been in terms of sponsoring esports events (fancy word for competitive video game tournaments) and investing in Android Go devices.
On the part of Android Go, the OS is a ‘lite’ variant of the Android OS. Most of Android Go smartphones launch in emerging smartphone markets in Africa and some parts of Asia. Emerging markets often have young populations.
The young population is what is need to balance out HMD customer demographics. Fun fact, half the population in Uganda is under the age of 15.
It will be interesting to see if HMD efforts will solve the company’s demographic problem.
Kevin is a tech enthusiast and the lead writer at MobiTrends.co.ke. He has been writing about smartphones and tech related topics since October 2012. About Us | Contact Us
