Are You Having A Real Nokia Experience?

Think one word: security. The moment Olivia Pope took out a white Nokia 925 to handle her business, the world, or at least the 5.4 million Scandal fans, sat up, shifting any dark thoughts they had entertained on the death of Nokia. She introduced us to the Nokia experience.

In case you wondered why on planet TV she would pick a Windows phone, here is the answer to the mystery. Anybody who has the President of the Free World on speed dial knows security is basically God. This is what the spanking shiny brand-new CEO of HMD Global Nokia Florian Seiche is banking on. During his speech and interview at The Intercontinental Hotel earlier this morning, 21st January 2020, he and his high-ranking team hosted a breakfast press conference right before heading to meet and talk with Kenya’s top brass and ICT stakeholders.

With him were the HMD Global VP Sub-Sahara Africa Justin Maier, HMD Global Executive Chairman Jean-Francois Baril and the HMD Global GM, Business Leader – West, East and Central Africa Joseph Umunakwe. Curiously, Nokia’s operations are packaged in trios. The first set is what makes Nokia distinct, separating them from the sea of Samsungs and the indulgence – I mean luxury, of iPhones:

The Nordic heritage that birthed Nokia mobile phones gives them a chance to showcase their beautifully minimalist, cleanly designed with a purity of design.
User experiences stand for quality and how Nokia make sure these are similar whether you buy their premium phones like their flagship Nokia 9 PureView or a mid-range phone such as the 7.2 or C1. Think HDMR imaging. And the two-day battery life Florian is quite proud of that brings all the youth to the social media yard.
And finally, the raison d’être of the Nokia, monthly updates syncing across all Nokia smartphones on earth and in their database regardless of their tier be they worth US $15 or US $900.

It is the latter measure which ties cybersecurity into a tidy techie slash consumer bow. And comes across as unmistakably Nokia’s pride and joy. The way Florian sees it, his customer’s security is Nokia’s responsibility. “Our unique take is to manage security with monthly security updates across two generations. This approach was recognized last year not just by the industry, but even better, by the consumers. The message is that Nokia is getting better. We want our customers to be happy with their phones.”

Legendary for their feature phones, they now want to focus on smartphones across the three African key markets: Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria. Their target, as is now the well-known case, are the African youth. The young consumers whose social media relationships need to be wrapped up in security. They also attract smartphone financing what, with their phones glued to their palms, they are bound to want the interesting new sweet Afrocentric brand. Especially with Nokia going for 10% of Kenya’s market share.

The third pride and joy Florian reveals is “The very large public and corporate sectors uptake in many parts of the world has been tremendous progress. They have been using our phones.”

While it is evident who the market leaders are in the mobile world do not rule out Nokia yet. They are 4th or 5th in Europe and just signed a deal with AT&T, America’s biggest mobile operator. Expect to see advertisements when Nokia begin looking for and building their team.

Naturally, 5G is on the table and so are strategic partnerships and guess what? You are one of those. And one more thing because it bears repeating, the biggest, loudest conversation du jour, cybersecurity. In case this piqued your curiosity, again, the most used app locally and universally, is the camera. And we want to keep those pictures safe. Don’t we?