Three has been quite odd about the Lumia uptake. They currently only stock the high-end 920/5, and the lowest end 520, but nothing in between. Surprised they don't really push 620 more. For quick comparison - with unlimited data, txt and 500mins:
Lumia 920 is ?31pm & ?29 upfront, ?773 total (Launched at ?34pm & ?69 upfront)
Lumia 925 is ?30pm & no upfront (launched at ?35pm)
iPhone 5 is ?32pm & ?29 upfront (launched at ?36pm & ?79 upfront)
Galaxy S4 is ?33pm & ?49 upfront (Launched at ?35pm)
One way to think about how 1020 will be priced is looking at its predecessors - that's tricky as 1020 is whole new niche/high segment. Previous Lumia devices had somewhat of an inferiority complex than iPhone/Galaxy - and that's reflected slightly in price.
Keep in mind Lumia 920 has been out since November, its monthly cost only lowered from ?34pm to ?31pm, upfront cost dropped 1 tier; yet Lumia 925 launches at much lower entry price of ?30pm – despite Three’s original PR release suggested ?35pm launch price. It could be Nokia making space for 1020 intentionally – however I doubt it as such marketing strategy would have been implemented in advance. Lowering the price by a fiver before the phone is a month old indicates a big marketing rethink. Nokia’s Quarterly report is coming out on the 18th July. Basically this means the prelim result showed that Lumia 920, and more specifically 820/720 didn't hit the target in Europe. With 920 they couldn’t have helped it – it was their flagship. Lowering the price wouldn't have been too acceptable, well either is not really selling any handset. At 180g it was heavy and large, Nokia didn’t make selling it easy. 925 should change that – considerably resolving the issues of 920. It's probably also high time that Nokia realised that playing a portfolio of 5/6/7/8/9/10x0 is confusing. It makes sense to have fewer decent mid-range phone, each distinguishable without big drawback. 925 does that - it will be mainstream phone.
But now they’ve the 1020 (and possibly phablet in Q4) – with 925 already at ?30pm - Nokia has got to play favorite sooner or later. Sell more 925, or 1020? Because 925 shares essentially the same platform as 1020, lowering its price further quickly would deteriorate 1020’s value. So let’s assume for the short run 925 would have sticky price. It obviously then to inflate 1020 to around ?37-42pm would be a price for the functionality (?10-12pm premium) - then if it could gain traction it would wouldn’t be at expense of 925. The mid-year launch of 925 is also new. But this also means 925 has space to go around as low as ?26-7pm in time, assuming the price goes down at same pace as 920. That's still too high to make meaningful impact. You need 925 at around ?25 to fend off the S4 and new iPhone. The question is – would they be willing to do that – make WP more widely used, at the expense of margin? Guess we’ll have to pop back in 6 month and see. With PV Nokia could possibly reverse the WP trend of price reducing faster than Galaxy and iPhone.
IMO Nokia would do well to keep 1020 in the premium market. You simply cannot flood the market with PureView without charging back the R&D cost– if it’s too widely available it makes future upgrade difficult; and if it’s priced too closely to 925 then it will cannibalise the figures, 925 is currently lower than S4/iPhone prices; it actually looks compelling. On the other hand, Nokia could afford to charge premium for specialist 1020 device. 925 would drive sales volume – and 1020 to commend the premium market. With large BSI sensors in the new 1020 - hopefully they won't have yield issues.
Which brings to Lumia 1020's initial launch price would be probably ?35-42pm & ?79-199 upfront?
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