Nokia's view of itself, wireless, camera phones and multimedia

Is Nokia now the largest camera manufacturer? Nokia has said, and I've pointed to the article, that it will be the largest digital camera vendor in the world in 2003. According to a slide from a Nokia executive's presentation (see below), it seems that Nokia has achieved this.

The slide is from Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's executive vice president and general manager of multimedia, who did a presentation about "Driving Consumer Multimedia" on November 24 during Nokia 2003 Capital Market Days. Thanks to a pointer and discussion by Russell Beattie, I found Nokia's Web page where all the presentations are available in pdf files.

The video presentations were available on Monday (Russell listened to them). I tried to view them this evening but a note on the Web site said the presentations were being archived and would be available soon.

Nokia's strategy

For anyone interested in Nokia's strategy, the presentations could be quite useful. The slides themselves, without any audio or video, are useful.

If Nokia is indeed the largest [digital only?] camera vendor, this is indeed momentous. Shoot off some fireworks. A wireless manufacturer -- not a camera manufacturer -- is the king of camera sales.

Nokia also is a big fan of moblogs, according to Russell, who wrote about the presentations.

Nokia and moblogs

Russell writes, "The most interesting thing I heard was about Nokia's enthusiasm for moblogs! Both during the presentation and in response to a question from an analyst about mobiles in the imaging market, Vanjoki stressed that the ability to post photos online and annotate those pictures ('your life' I think he said) as an important differentiator for mobile phones with cameras.

"This is very interesting to me, as I had the idea that moblogging is a niche idea with a limited audience. But it seems that Nokia is really excited about the idea and is putting a lot of weight on the ability of people to post their pictures online, not just in a photo album, but in a way that becomes entertainment to others."

I can understand why Russell would think moblogging is a niche product. Looking at today's market, I agree. But looking at future services and assuming there will be good-enough marketing, I believe moblogs and Weblogs will evolve into what I've been calling "multimedia personal publishing" (or just "multimedia publishing" if I'm talking about corporate applications).

Weblog/moblog panoply

I believe the winners in the Weblog/moblog marketplace will offer a panoply of services. The services will include wireless and wireline posting of text, still photos, audio and video in an easy to use, modular package that enables users to pick whatever they want.

A key to success will be providing a very rich service that can be used in a step-by-step manner so it doesn't overwhelm new subscribers.

Comments

[Alan A. Reiter]

Thanks for your comment. I agree that many of Nokia's camera phones are excellent and they are one of the leaders in developing this technology.

However, Nokia isn't surpassing some Asian manufacturers. For example, Samsung offers a ten megapixel camera phone.

[Keith]

I really believe that Nokia mobile phones are superb and have a largest market of mobile phones in the world. They provide a variety of mobile phones of many ranges. Recently Nokia N95, having 5 megapixel camera surpass every handset beacuse we only have 3.2 megapixel yet, you can guess the future of mobile phones from Nokia.