Year | Winner |
2000 | Nokia |
Not much speculation about the most popular cellphone. Nokia
rules the market by a wide margin. This is the first time we’re featuring
cellphones in the User’s Choice. The cellular services market has been growing
at an almost steady pace since its inception. Meanwhile,
Cellphones |
|
User's Choice Club | UPI |
Nokia | 100 |
Panasonic | 11 |
Ericsson | 10 |
Motorola | 10 |
Sony | 10 |
prices of handsets have been falling (with the recent cut in
sales taxes), new features being incorporated, and additional services provided
to the customers.
Latest offerings from companies include T9 text input (for
faster SMS), voice dialing and voice menu, hands-free operation, etc. Not all
brands have done any aggressive ad campaigning recently. But still, they are
having good sales. This reflects that now we have a more informed user. As for
the service providers, although bundled package offerings have reduced, this has
not affected the cellphone handset market much. Some technologies like SMS have
already picked up, while others like WAP are following suit. In fact, as and
when a technology comes up, all the brands incorporate it.
The determining factor for the purchase of a cellphone is
quality. Our survey showed strong brand presence for Nokia. More than a third of
the sample size for both the corporate and household segments preferred it
because of its quality, service or support, and reliability. Respondents also
indicated that they would like to stick to the brand in future too. And even
people intending to buy either new handset or changing their handsets, show a
marked trend to go in for Nokia.
There seems to be a lot of competition among the other
players who entered the User’s Choice Club. Ericcson, Sony, and Motorola had
the same UPI score, and the runner up Panasonic was just a point ahead of them.
So it appears that they have a long way to go before they can break into Nokia’s
mindshare.