Nokia has clear strategy to increase India mkt share

Nokia, which has about 40 per cent market share globally, is at the same breath aggressive, but aggression for it does not mean being arrogant.

"....modesty and flexibility is the only thing that will hold for us. The rest others can also do," Nokia India Managing Director D Shivakumar said, adding that "we don't want to rest on our laurels but move ahead."

Sounding a word of caution, he added, "Any market leader should not take his position for granted. Every single market leader who has lost in the last 100 years has lost because they were arrogant, complacent or they were unwilling to change."

Nokia is a market leader in India but is facing tough competition from players like Samsung, LG, Apple's iPhone and Blackberry to name a few.

"All competitors are important for us. Be it the RiM and Blackberry at the enterprise segment or Apple on entertainment or the Chinese handsets at a commodity level," he said.

India, which is adding nearly 10 million new mobile users every month, has seen various handset makers battling it out for market share. On the high-end segment there is RIM's Blackberry, Apple's iPhone, HTC and others.

The company does not have a single competitor, Shivakumar said, adding: "If Nokia is focussed on one competitor, it would be a wrong thing for us."

India has a major role in Nokia's overall growth and has become the second largest market for the company after China.

Talking about competition here, Shivakumar said: "This is a very high innovation based industry, the average life of a phone model anywhere in the world is 18-24 months... so the business thrives on innovation and new products all the time."

On an average Nokia launches 40-50 products in a year across various segments.

True to its tagline -- Connecting People -- the company is now focussing more on rural India.

The company is planning to launch its agricultural, educational and entertainment services  Nokia Life Tools, which would benefit farmers in the rural area in 11 states.

"We have launched the Nokia Live tool in Maharashtra which will benefit three lakh farmers there. We are going to launch it in 11 other states soon," Shivakumar added.

Under the service, Nokia provides news, information on agriculture, data on commodities from local markets, which will be delivered over handsets to subscribers in the rural areas.