There's a palpable buzz in the lobby of the Taj Coromandel in Chennai. It's just before the IPL finals between CSK and KKR.
The KKR team is staying in the hotel and fans have queued up to see the team. Team owner Shah Rukh Khan is expected any moment, creating a frisson of excitement.
In the midst of this bustle, Mr D. Shivakumar, Senior Vice-President, India, Middle East, Africa markets, Nokia, clad in a purple KKR t-shirt, is calmly getting on the outside of a
Ask Mr Shivakumar what is going to be Nokia's offering to disrupt the market, where it has lost much ground, he talks excitedly about the Nokia 808 Pureview phone which is expected to be launched soon.
While a normal mobile phone would have a 2-3 megapixel camera and may be a maximum of 8-12 megapixels, the 808 will be 41 MP – more camera than phone!
Mr Shivakumar says that the phone is being developed in response to how consumers are using their phones. “Imaging is big on phones. People snap a lot, transmit a lot. We wanted to set a new benchmark in terms of innovation and technology. So it's a kind of a hot leadership credential innovation,” he says. The phone, expected to be priced around Rs 30,000 in India, will be launched soon.
Satellite tech
Nokia legend has it that two R&D engineers stood on the roof of a home in Finland and looking up, asked, “What would it mean if we had to put a satellite camera in a phone.”
That led to the company using satellite imaging technology to develop the Pureview.
Ask Mr Shivakumar about all the adverse news confronting Nokia, about losing share, Samsung overtaking it in the smartphone sweepstakes, he's non-committal but says, “The thing is we need to grow. That's what is important. It's not that others are overtaking us as much as we didn't grow globally. We are in transition and it's in the right direction.”
Three things
And, the handphones MNC, he says, is doing several things to keep it focused. With India, its second largest market after China, critical to Nokia's growth story, Mr Shivakumar says the company is doing three key things: transit its smart devices from Symbian to the Windows system (last quarter it sold 2 million units, he says); second part of the strategy is to connect the second billion to the Net for which it has launched sub-brands such as Asha, a range of affordable phones. The third leg of its strategy, Mr Shivakumar says, is to bet on big innovations which will disrupt the market place, with products such as the Pureview or the City Lens solutions based on Nokia Maps. He gesticulates with his phone. “If you point your phone here, it will tell you, on this line, for about 25 km, which are the restaurants, which are the points of interest, and how far they are. So all you need to do is click on that and get details. That will be a big transformational move and will really be of help enormously, anywhere you are, whether you are a resident of the place, or a traveller.”
The City Lens, which uses GPS, is a feature on its Lumia phones and Nokia counts it among its innovations. “Earlier, people used to say knowing a location will never be a problem in populous countries because all you do is roll down your window and ask where the Taj Coromandel is. That is one part. But nobody can tell you which are the restaurants near the Taj or which are the shops near it! For that, we need this kind of a facility.”