If you look at their financials, they are still a very profitable company. Revenue is ~40 billion, net income a little under 2 billion. It seems if they continue on the path of "we can make a better smartphone!", their financial statement will be murdered in the next 2-3 years. If someone fiscally conservative took over and focused them on the niche where they do well, they can still survive in a post-smartphone world. That would require trimming jobs, cutting costs...
But is that a niche that's even going to exist in five years? I'm sure someone will be making feature phones in 2017 (I mean, someone's still making landline phones today) but that'll be a low-margin business for companies worth much, much less than Nokia is worth today. I can't imagine Nokia's shareholders would like this idea... in their view, it's probably better to swing for the fences than resign yourself to failure.
There's only so much that you can do to persuade people NOT to upgrade, especially in developing markets like India or South Africa where Nokia is traditionally strong. The rise of the middle-class in those areas will inevitably reduce demand for Nokia "smartphones" (by which they mean Symbian phones, hardly smart but whatever), squeezing their already-low margins on that sector. They would have to be constantly chasing new "poor" markets, which is hard; and they'd further tarnish the brand in traditional markets.
I'm sure they can survive even by just following the current strategy to the bitter end (i.e. becoming Microsoft's bitc-- er, preferred partner). What they cannot do is to grow or even just to stay relevant.
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If you look at their financials, they are still a very profitable company. Revenue is ~40 billion, net income a little under 2 billion. It seems if they continue on the path of "we can make a better smartphone!", their financial statement will be murdered in the next 2-3 years. If someone fiscally conservative took over and focused them on the niche where they do well, they can still survive in a post-smartphone world. That would require trimming jobs, cutting costs...
But is that a niche that's even going to exist in five years? I'm sure someone will be making feature phones in 2017 (I mean, someone's still making landline phones today) but that'll be a low-margin business for companies worth much, much less than Nokia is worth today. I can't imagine Nokia's shareholders would like this idea... in their view, it's probably better to swing for the fences than resign yourself to failure.
There's only so much that you can do to persuade people NOT to upgrade, especially in developing markets like India or South Africa where Nokia is traditionally strong. The rise of the middle-class in those areas will inevitably reduce demand for Nokia "smartphones" (by which they mean Symbian phones, hardly smart but whatever), squeezing their already-low margins on that sector. They would have to be constantly chasing new "poor" markets, which is hard; and they'd further tarnish the brand in traditional markets.
I'm sure they can survive even by just following the current strategy to the bitter end (i.e. becoming Microsoft's bitc-- er, preferred partner). What they cannot do is to grow or even just to stay relevant.
with the price of smartphones approaching $50 there is no niche left to them..