The Nokia X made a huge (green) splash at the Mobile World Congress event a couple of weeks and has been rapidly making its moves into markets, with it launching in Malaysia, India and the Phillipines. It is now all set to launch in China, and just 5 days after announcing the device for the market and opening the pre-orders, Nokia has reportedly received 1 million of them already. The company posted this on its Weibo account with a celebratory image touting the big number.
This is a re-entry of sorts for Nokia, after suffering terrible sales and a rapid decline in marketshare, in the biggest mobile phone market of this world. The decline started just before Nokia switched gears in 2011 and the company never recovered from that fall. But for a country that is devoid of Google services, the Nokia X must have seemed like a viable option, and the numbers show. The Nokia X is basically a forked Android device from Nokia that can run all sorts of Android apps, except the ones that are tied to Google’s services. One can sideload APKs and run any standalone Android app or get them through the Nokia Store, which will house all the modified Android apps that use Nokia APIs instead of Google’s. This is not a problem for a market like China because all the Android phones in the country run on home grown services, which the Nokia X can easily support.
Priced for the entry level, which is the biggest market segment in China, the Nokia X could possibly be a hit device if consumers warm up to the interface and the general compromises associated with a low cost device. But will the success be good enough to change Microsoft’s mind? Could the Nokia X survive in the Chinese market, or could it may be indirectly bring consumers over to Windows Phone, with the familiarity factor and all? It will be very interesting to see where this goes, so stay tuned to the blog for all the updates and more.
Source Weibo via AndroidBeat | cnbeta