I have been following Nokia Lumia 920 release date in India for quite some time on local sites, tech.in, bgr-something, IBN7, NDTV yadda yadda - not through delaers or Nokia care or inside contacts, and I must confess, the trip has been rather disappointing, with the dates slipping from November, through December to January now and some even predicting February. Add to that, the sky rocketing price going through the roof. I mean I cannot afford the sky.
On a similar note to the gentleman from Udaipur above, I actually do have contacts inside of Nokia, and while I'm at it, tons of them. Nokia hires from my college, and a lot of seniors work there, and trust me, their guess is as good as the next persons. Because one, they work for Nokia enterprise solutions, the peeps who make the network radio equipment, the stuff that goes on the towers and their stations you know.
(everything that follows is solely my opinion/view/analytic and is in no way endorsed by Nokia and/or any of its employees)
And two, because the nature and scope of the Lumia 920 is such that it's almost completely developed and being controlled from offices off shores. The marketing too is a centralized affair, and not worldwide coordinated affair. Which basically means that it was not developed in India, and even the marketing/sales team in India will be handed over the product only after the global marketing team has a taken the decision of launching it here - and that too only for local baantna. And part of the reason for the step-motherly treatment India is getting is because India never was the intended market for the Lumia.
True that India has long been the major market for Nokia products, but that was only because Nokia was cheap and reliable. It's highest end products were meted out with only modest response. The moment Nokia products ventured into segments populated by other, more revered and exclusive brands such as Blackberry (I'm talking about a decade ago, when BB was da baamb), HP iPaq, Palm, O2, HTC etc. Nobody gave a **** about Nokia if they could afford these business class smartphones when these were novelty. In an analogy in today's time and day, not to mention the HTCs you can get a third generation iPad with cellular for 45K. With Retina display and what not. Add to that the class they'd be elevated to (sarcasm intended) by owning an Apple product which is a time tested product, who'd go for a Nokia? These are anyway better suited for data needs, couple them with a basic phone (maybe even a Nokia 1100) and you're good to go. It'll cost 5-6K more, but you're better off. You have very few people who're actually Nokia loyalists, and would buy a Nokia and only a Nokia, and they're so few you can count them. Just do a Google search for Nokia Lumia 920, and count the people commenting. They're those peeps (me being one of them). Anyway, so much for this rant.
This btw, also means that if Nokia released an Asha, say Asha X, for 5K the same time as the 920, in a about a months time, the Asha will garner Nokia more profits, since the Asha X is likely to be sold ten times as the the 920; that's 50K in Asha X's compared to the Lumia 920's 40K. That's the difference in profit margin they'll get. That's the the Indian economy works; we;re still a developing economy with the middle class forming the majority stratum of the society. According to my personal estimates anyway.
Anyway, my rant aside, I came online to check the current status. And I found the glorious conversation above. Told me nothing new, the first week of January news hit me last night, but the exchange with the Nokia insider contact and some of the rest of the forum members made my day!
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