JUDGING BY THE HANDSET NEWS out of CTIA Wireless 2008 last week, competition in the United States is a SKU vs. SKU battle -handset-to-handset combat, if you will.
In the absence of anything earth-shattering, the variety of handset news really spoke more to the myriad methods and strategies by which vendors and their carrier patrons are approaching the market. An attempt to rank the most interesting handset launches based on technology and feature sets might miss the point.
Take Nokia Corp., for instance.
Yeah, there was the N810 Internet Tablet, WiMAX Edition. Pretty cool, if you wish to pay $300 to $400 (the actual price has yet to be announced) for a portable browser. But there’s really no WiMAX network yet, just test markets in Washington, D.C./Baltimore and Chicago.
So, look instead at the two CDMA/AWS handsets the Finnish behemoth is bringing to the U.S. market with its “co-DM” strategy. Both handsets, the 1606 and the 3606, are clamshell models due in the third quarter; no pricing or carrier deals have been announced – though, obviously, CDMA carriers Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. are the candidates.
Wait! Nokia offering CDMA in the U.S.?
Yes, the company is designing handsets with an unnamed original design manufacturer (ODM) that has CDMA licenses with Qualcomm Inc. (Speculation has focused on Pantech but Nokia declined to comment.) Thus Nokia has effectively de-coupled its legal battle with Qualcomm Inc. over licensing CDMA technologies from its immediate need to address 60% of the U.S. market. Without de-coupling the two issues, Nokia’s progress in cracking the U.S. CDMA market could be dependent on settling matters with Qualcomm, which could adversely affect Nokia’s negotiating position.
Nokia would not publicly acknowledge this dynamic, though a spokeswoman acknowledged that the perceived linkage between its co-DM strategy and negotiations with Qualcomm had merit.
Nokia’s North American president, Mark Louison, also confirmed that the vendor would launch its own touchscreen effort by the end of the year. Louison said that Nokia was only interested in doing touchscreen products if they complemented its nascent software-and-services strategy.
Samsung bolsters Sprint
Next up: Samsung’s new iPhone look-alike, the Instinct, set for launch at Sprint Nextel Corp. in June. At CTIA, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse pointed out that the device packs CDMA2000 1x EV-DO (3G) speeds, GPS and haptic feedback on its touchscreen – all qualities lacking in the iPhone.
Though pricing for the Instinct is TBA, speculation focuses on a sub-$300 tag. Two catches, according to analyst Avi Greengart at Current Analysis: the Instinct is not a smartphone and consumers must sign up for one of Sprint’s new Simply Everything rate plans, which begin at $70 per month for only 450 minutes of talk time.
Clearly, Sprint is using its collaboration with Samsung to offer a competitor to the most-talked-about handset of the past year and emphasize its new Simply Everything plans in an effort to revive its flagging fortunes.
According to Greengart, Sprint will spend $100 million on promoting the device and its service plan – an indication of the carrier’s dedication to retaining subscribers and attracting new ones.
“With a lower price point, plenty of functionality and $100 million behind it, the Instinct should be a hit for Samsung and could be the halo product Sprint needs to rally around,” Greengart wrote in a report last week.
Other vendors’ strategies
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications L.P. delivered its Z750a clamshell in an exclusive with AT&T Mobility, the vendor’s first HSDPA in the States and a critical, additional SKU in its top-tier carrier offerings. Each SKU at AT&T Mobility is critical to SEMC’s effort to make inroads in the U.S., which is hampered by the vendor’s GSM-only strategy. SEMC also dangled its Xperia X1 smartphone, running Windows Mobile 6.1, and suggested a U.S. launch in the second half of the year.
LG Electronics Co. delivered the enV
