Are carriers or OEM's impeding WP sales and exposure?

[jonnaver]

Who's to blame for exclusivity agreements? Where I used to live the largest two carriers have had a pattern of one carrier only selling non Nokia windows phones, which were less popular but the brands were recognized android sellers as well. The other carrier always got the newest Nokia releases. Neither sold both.

Yet both carriers all sold iphones and all the major android brands. Who's fault was it for the one carrier not selling Nokia products? Nokia or the carrier? How is WP supposed to capture more attention when their most popular manufacturer doesn't get sold by some major carriers?

 

[a5cent]

We've had many of these discussion here at WPC.

On the one hand, we have carriers that prefer exclusive devices, which they can use to bait customers. In return for such exclusives, they offer OEMs special deals, like higher subsidies (making the devices cheaper for customers while not affecting the OEMs margins), money to help market the device, and/or guarantees to sell a predetermined number of phones, etc.

On the other hand, we have OEMs that are more or less dependent on carrier support, and/or their good will. Some OEMs like Apple create devices that carriers can't easily live without, so Apple is able to dictate their terms to carriers. Most OEMs don't have that luxury however, and must be content with what the carriers are willing to offer. That was the situation for Nokia.

Overall, it's the carriers that setup the market conditions that favour device exclusives, but it also requires OEMs to agree to those conditions, or at least be dependent enough on carrier support to have little choice but to consent.

 

[jonnaver]

OK that's kinda what I thought but wasn't sure. In the case of the no-nokia carrier I mentioned, they have for at least the last 4 years now ONLY sold Apple, Samsung, Sony, LG, HTC, and Blackberry. Used to sell moto but not anymore. I've always had the impression that they're very stodgy and conservative about refusing to sell any brand that isn't top of the headlines. That should've included BB but I think they still have a lot of corporate customers ordering them.