In store Brand recommendation - and why Microsoft is struggling in the US

[vlad0]

On page 3-4 of this research, you will read the following

"63% of consumers who bought a device in
1Q14 were recommended a Samsung
device, more than double the rate of
recommendation for Apple, and almost 10
times more than Nokia."

It doesn't really bond well for the US market. If you read the whole research, you will learn that more people in US still buy their phones at local retailers instead of online, and if they don't get those store reps to start recommending WP products, its not going to be easy to penetrate the US market.

Source: http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/dwl.php?sn=news_downloads&id=593

 

[Jas00555]

I mean, to be fair, 7% is double what the market share actually is and is twice as high as people who recommend Sonys.

Meanwhile I'm surprised 1% of people recommend a ZTE phone. That is 1% too many.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Nokia never had much brand recognition in the USA. While people all over the rest of the world bought Symbian devices, people in the USA bought Palm and BlackBerry devices.
Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Tapatalk

 

[Jas00555]

Nokia never had much brand recognition in the USA. While people all over the rest of the world bought Symbian devices, people in the USA bought Palm and BlackBerry devices.
Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Tapatalk

I'd argue that they had/have brand recognition, they just didn't have brand power. As in, even today, when I show people my phone, they recognize Nokia and they know about it, they're just not buying them.

 

[vlad0]

Whatever brand recognition they had, it was not associated with smartphones, so when the boom happened they were left out. Not having a US-spec product at the time didn't help either. They refused to play with Verizon, and AT&T only got a few phones... I think they had a variant of the E71 and another one before that but I don't remember the model number.

The amazing part is that within 5-6 years their incredible brand recognition in the EU weakened significantly... its nowhere near where it was 10 years ago.

This also gives you perspective on how hard it is to break into the smartphone market. Microsoft practically used the Nokia brand name (an incredible design/engineering of course) to get whatever market share they have at the moment, and yet.. they are still struggling globally.

Just imagine for a second if they didn't have Nokia to play with, but let's say.. HTC for example.. they will be sitting at 0.2% global market share right now.

Either way, they need to somehow change those sales people's approach.. a lot of them are clueless and are harming their sales.

 

[Bobvfr]

Went into a Tesco the other day, one sad lonely 520 stuck in a corner by itself.

It's the same in the UK, you almost have to work hard to buy a WP.


Bob

 

[zakaweb]

I live in Philadelphia and I recently went into two different at&t stores downtown and I noticed that they had removed their Windows phone displays and had no windows phone at all to be seen. I don't think this is going to end well. I'm a long time fan and it's really disappointing to watch the intentional snubbing of windows phones by one of its carriers.

 

[DoctorSaline]

To be honest, I don't blame them. If they recommend something else, then they are not being honest with their jobs. You want to attract people towards windows phone? That's what advertisements(and better specs) are for. Also, the more important issue is carrier exclusivity. People can't buy windows phone even if they want to without changing their existing carriers because of this. This trend needs to change if MS is serious about US penetration.

 

[Lumilainen]

Here in Sweden the retailers say that they earn less selling a Nokia then lets say a Samsung or a Iphone....

 

[vlad0]

I don't even think its about recommending WP over the others, its about presenting it as an option, which in many cases doesn't even happen..

Their market share is down almost 1% according to IDC, so yea.. case in point I guess.

 

[DoctorSaline]

An article on Neowin has addressed this same exact thing.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/neowin-main/~3/oqguGKrzYQM/story01.htm

 

[vlad0]

^ yeah... fanboys, fanboys everywhere.