Nokia needs to listen to its customers more closely....

It is amazing how fast Nokia phones have fallen from favour. 

My first five or six phones were all Nokias. My very first was the iconic Nokia 8110, the banana shaped phone. I made many a mobile business deal on it and still remember it fondly. I was a great Nokia fan. I now use a Blackberry.

Just two years ago, Nokia was riding a mighty reputation. Today that reputation could be in tatters.

This just goes to show how fast changing is the mood of the public and how companies need to be very alert to changing market situations.

Companies also need to keep a very close watch (and ear) on what is being spoken about them in the marketplace. I just saw an article  on Nokia, for example, where almost all the comments are negative and hostile to the company. Intrigued, I visited Nokia's Facebook page. No negativity there. Everything looks nice and hunky dory. Is Nokia's management adopting an ostrich-like head-in-the-sand policy and trying to pretend that an unhappy customer base is a mirage?

Maybe Maybe not. Only time will tell.

Although it took ages for the company to even wake up to the fact that there is a huge market in India that demands a dual SIM, to its credit it has final done something about it in the form of releasing (in early 2012) Asha 200, a QWERTY smartphone with dual-swap feature in which you do not need to switch off the phone in order to switch between SIMs. 

There is only one problem. The Indian mobile market demand pattern changes every six months. So what the trend will be in early 2012 is anybody's guess, given the fierce competition industry.

What do you think? Will Nokia make it?