D Shivakumar, managing director of Nokia’s India business,
will be elevated to head Nokia’s mobile business in around 90 countries across
the Middle-east, the African region and India, the emerging mobile
markets in the world, according to PTI.
During Shivakumar’s time, Nokia
India faced tough competition from regional phone makers and Chinese players. In
the smartphone space, companies such as Samsung, Apple and BlackBerry started
eating into Nokia’s marketshare. Nokia’s market share in India fell to around
25 percent in 2011 from around 53 percent in 2007.
According to IDC,
Nokia is leading the Indian mobile phone market and the smartphone segment in
Q2 2011, with 25 and 45.8 percent shares, respectively.
Samsung, second to Nokia with shares of 15 percent and 21
percent in the mobile phone market and the smartphone segment, respectively, clocked
the strongest smartphone shipment growth during the quarter, fuelled by its
Galaxy series of handsets. In the smartphone segment, RIM occupied the third
place with a share of 15 percent, according to IDC.
Shivakumar joined Nokia in 2006
from Philips India where he was the executive director and vice president.
In 2007, months after Shivakumar joined Nokia India, the phone major’s market share in the country
was around 53 percent, while Nokia’s global marketshare
was slightly below 40 percent.
Besides
working at consolidating Nokia’s market presence, Shivakumar focused on
building the Nokia brand, driving partnerships and strategic alliances and
developing the capabilities of the Nokia organization in India.
Shivakumar has over two
decades of experience in the consumer market in India. Before Nokia, Shivakumar worked with consumer electronics business for Philips India. Prior to this he has spent several
years with Hindustan Lever in various sales, marketing and business head roles
and his last assignment in Lever was heading the Hair Care business.
Shivakumar will head more than 90 countries under (India, Middle East and
Africa) from the Dubai regional head quarters. According to sources, this
region accounts for 35- 40 per cent of the total sales for Nokia and is one of
the fastest growing region for company.
Nokia had 8 sales unit globally which were further divided
in to 40 local sales unit. After the rejig, there would be 4 regions and 21
sales areas.
Shivakumar will be based out of Dubai. Nokia is making Dubai the head office
for IMEA because of the connectivity to various countries he will be looking
after. He said the decision to regroup various sales region under fewer areas
is to develop customised product as per the needs of the region and increase
the speed of response to meet the need of the local markets.
The three other new regions announced by Nokia are the Americas, Europe and the
Asia-Pacific. Americas will look after sales network in North and South
America. This region will be headed by former Microsoft employee Chris Webber,
according to PTI.
Nokia will shut down its manufacturing plant in Romania and the existing volume
will be shifted to its plants in Asia, including India.
By Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com