Segments and Categories

Customers in Japan differ from customers in the United States, who differ from customers in China. Teenagers in the United Kingdom are likely to use their mobile phones in a totally different way from housekeepers or field representatives. (For examples of differences among customers, usage contexts, and conventions, turn to Chaps. 4, 8, and 9.)

Since the early 1980s, the mobile phone has undergone a transition from a business tool to an upscale accessory and ultimately to a ubiquitous consumer product. Manufacturers who were able to understand and predict customer wants and needs have been the most successful in the game. Their products have followed and established market trends, and they have matched customer needs when it comes to quality, price, industrial design, features, performance, support, brand, and user interface.

Today’s mobile phone business is not about selling the uniform black brick to everybody, but just the opposite—designing and delivering the right product for specific kinds of use. It all starts by analyzing and understanding the various segments in each market; some prefer simplicity, we learn, and some are highly cost-conscious. Some want to express their individuality, and some want all the latest technology features regardless of the cost. A key contributor in creating variety and packing personal appeal into products is industrial design. Nokia has actively developed its industrial design practices to be responsive to consumers’ lifestyles and the conventions of the fashion industry. To create products whose elements all fit seamlessly together, we also must tailor the user interface to customer categories. Presently we are applying six main customer segments: experiencers, impressors, controllers, maintainers, balancers, and sharers.

Table 1.1 correlates the main consumer segments at Nokia with the corresponding global product categories and their respective user interface attributes.

Table 1.1  Customer, Product, and User Interface Segmentation

start example

click to expand

end example

Nokia’s customer segmentation model is a continuously updated view of the global marketplace. It is based on extensive consumer research conducted by both the internal and external marketing research organizations, including trend analysis, sociological background research, and future watch activities. Evolving customer segments drive the evolution of the product categories in the company’s product strategy. These product categories are global, but their applicability depends on the nature of the markets; emerging markets behave differently from more mature ones, and Eastern cultures display different consumer preferences from Western ones. In addition, products belonging to the same global product category frequently diverge with respect to their cellular standards, such as WCDMA (wireless code-division multiple access) in Japan, GSM-GPRS (Global System for Mobile Communication–General Packet Radio Service) in Europe, CDMA in the United States—or by their regional feature set, such as a lunar calendar for the Chinese marketplace.



Mobile Usability(c) How Nokia Changed the Face of the Mobile Phone
Mobile Usability: How Nokia Changed the Face of the Mobile Phone
ISBN: 0071385142
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 142

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