Sony Ericsson's Product Strategy

The new Xperia Play from Sony Ericsson is another wonderful example of Sony Ericsson's product strategy that I mentioned here in 2007. Sony which realised long back that mobile or handheld devices will be the key driving force for all the gadgets in future, was quick to integrate it's sub-brands with its mobile phones. Walkman, Cybershot, Playstation, Viao, Bravia are all well-established brands from the house of Sony. However, in the mobile phone category, there was no strong differentiation for Sony when compared to Nokia's and Motorola's of the world. iPhone came much later if you remember. So why not integrate and leverage the brand equity created by the sub-brands and create a distinctive competitive advantage in the mobile phone category. Wonderful product differentiation strategy. We saw the birth of Walkman Phone followed by Cyber Shot Phone and now Xperia Play which is Xperia + Playstation.

With 4G in place, personal entertainment and watching video on the go is becoming even more popular, its not too far when we'll see a Bravia Phone soon. The Bravia Phone can even be Sony's answer to Tablets. Unlike iPad, the Bravia Tablet can strongly position itself as an On-the-go Entertainment device with all the goodness of Bravia TV inbuilt in it. Am dead sure as and when mobile computing becoomes mainstream, Viao Phone will be made available too. Anyways. Let Sony do what it does best. Build great brands.

Here's the new Xperia Play commercial.

Cheers.

NOKIA N8 - Aiming to gain ground

The Mobile Category in India is going through lot of changes at the moment. 3G, MNP, Smart Phones, Mobile Internet, Mobile TV ... A series of trends, analysis, reports and meaningful changes that will affect the Mobile market in India. Watch this space, lots of interesting things coming up... Smart Phones and Mobile Internet will be the next big things in India. Nokia is not the market leader when it comes to Smartphones, will N8 be the cash cow?

Here's a review of NOKIA N8:

Discover the Nokia N8 - an amazing smartphone that lets you take stunning photos, capture true HD movies and play them all back on your HDTV! Nokia N8 is the first phone to have a large 12 Megapixel camera lens and Carl Zeiss Optics, for flawless photo quality. It also bosts a HD video recorder and HDMI out, so you can be the movie maker, and share movie time with family and friends on your HD TV. The brilliant touchscreen and sleek aluminium casing are just what you'd expect from such an impressive phone, and with apps, maps and more to delve into, the Nokia N8 is easily one of this year's most exciting phones.

The world's first Symbian^3 smartphone, Nokia N8 is full of exciting features, apps and innovations. It's incredibly easy to stay in touch, as the N8's Twitter™ and Facebook™ applications are connected all day long, keeping you up-to-date with all the latest happenings in each of your networks. You can stay signed in to multiple instant messenger and email accounts, have several IM chats at once, and see all your texts in conversations.

Nokia N8 is all about entertainment. You can browse the whole web and watch flash videos online, store your favourite HD movies on the 16GB internal memory or on a microSD card (up to 32GB), and even enjoy on-demand Web TV, on your mobile phone! The exclusively customised BBC iPlayer app lets you catch up on your favourite BBC shows, and you can access TV channels online, from CNN to Paramount, and never miss out on your favourite shows.

For all those who wants to pick up a new smartphone, check out the new NOKIA N8.

Diwali SMS (Simple Mind Semiotics)

Morning newspaper says, "Average noise level in Bangalore yesterday was 122 Db." Authentic news and I can assure you that because no amount of ear plug, muffler, sound masking or closed window could help me reduce the noise. Isn't Diwali supposed to be a celebration of light not sound? Anyway, "We Are Like This Only."

Around 4 pm, my mobile started beeping continiously, some 70 SMSes in one go. Felt enlightened on the festival of light. SMS is a great subject for semiotic studies.

So here are few observations and my take on the human psyche:

Type 1. "Wsh u vry hppy Diwali n prsprs Nu Yr" or "Thnks wsh u da same" - Good understanding of the medium. Heavy user of the medium. Technophobics. Non Experimental. Boring. Single. Nanominded (believes in short and simple) Less emotive. Individualistic. Schizo. Busy. Talks straight and less. Politically (grammatically) correct. Non-multimedia phone owners. One to one communicator (P2P).

Type 2. "Wish you and your family a very Happy Diwali and Prosperous New Year" or "Our best wishes to you and your family for a most blessed and prosperous diwali...x, y, z1, z2" - Straight. Simple. Happy-go-lucky. Understands the medium but value conscious. Uses the medium on only purpose. Mostly group message senders. Techno-ambivalent. Feature driven. Narrow-minded. Family oriented. Very emotive. Lazy. Fun loving. Talks more. Non Multimedia phone owners. One to many communicator.

Type 3. "You received a Flash File SMS/ Picture Message/ Emoticons (.flv .swh .jpeg)" - Creative. Expressionists. Confused. Energetic. Image conscious. Heavy user of the medium. Technophile. Experimental. Gizmo freak. High Sociability Quotient. Late adaptor. Possessive. Multimedia phone owners. Many to many communicator.

Type 4. "Bursting cracker in front of the house. Have a blasting Diwali. MMS (.mpg.4)" - Heavy user of medium and features. Creative. Technophile. Experimental. Gizmo freak. Trend setters. Early adaptor. Family oriented. Thrill seeker. Gamer. participator of group activities. P2A, A2P communicator, oops many to many communicator.

Well, this is how I did a quick classification/ segmentation of the 70 SMSes. As a planner, I think this small observations and mental notes help is developing hypothesis that can be later used to validate brand problems. VAS (value added service) is the highest revenue generator ($ 1.2 bn) for service providers yet not many brands are utilizing this medium effectively. So, how can a brand talk to these four types of SMS users. Which brands will talk to whom? Only HSBC, RR City Taxi and Airtel were kind enough to send me a Diwali wish. Where are other brands present in this medium? No one will sue you or get offended when you send a good wish unlike your irritating messages like buy now, discount on immediate purchase, send SMS to 4455 etc. Now, isn't this an interesting hypothesis?

Do discuss.

India Mobile Mania

Mobile telephony is one evolving category. Evolving everyday. So I thought will keep a tab of all the latest data doing rounds apart from what you get in IDC.

• Smart phones contributed 4% of the 65 million handsets sold in India in 2006
• 32% of mobile users wants every available feature in their handsets
• In the Q3 of 2006, smart phones shipped to India increased by 200%
• Mobile enterprise email growth rate for India from 2006 - 2010 will be 43% CAGR
• 3G phone market in India are expected to grow 70% in 2007 - 2008
  
• Churn rate of service providers is growing at 10 - 12 % per month
  

Well do watch out for MotoQ, Nokia E90 and the new Blackberry about to hit the Indian market.

Source: Tech Today

Keep Talking

Indians are talking. Talking very loud indeed. I'm writing a white paper called "Keep Talking - The social impact of mobile telephone in Rural India." Any contribution is most welcome.