Lumia 900′s – “Normal life cycle management process” aka ‘price cuts’
In the UK, we’re very much used to phones being subsidised on contract. Subsidised is good for some people as part of the monthly payments on text/calls/internet goes towards the cost of their phone so that it is a small fraction, if not free (unless it’s an iPhone, which was one of the first, if not the first in the UK to be on contract yet still be so expensive). Being free on contract is quite normal for the UK and something I thought was weird for the US to still pay for the handset, again until iPhone arrived in UK, e.g. SGSIII, OneX and Lumia 900 are all available free on similar if not identical plans. Are they giving phones away? No.
The manufacturer works with the network provider and shares the revenue from the contract. Anyway, a common trend is that after a few months on contract, prices of those phones gradually drops (or, if in the UK the line rental may get cheaper). It’s a common thing, and if you’re a savvy buyer, you would have found it at a much cheaper contract from the beginning.
I haven’t been paying attention to the news that the Nokia Lumia 900 had dropped in price to $49. It was already briefly mentioned when the pink lumia 900 arrived, and I didn’t think much more of it (especially since it was available for a penny in some places). Some places are reporting that the price drop reflects the news that the Lumia 900 can’t get upgraded to WP8. If true, that would be as expected by some. Others suggested it’s because of weak sales, and skewing the time frame into ‘weeks’ instead of the reality of 3 months.. That could also be true and we’ll find out in a few hours what the precise Q2 performance has been.
Nokia however says that’s part of the normal lifecycle. Some headlines do sound more dramatic – ”slashed in half” when really, the price dropped by $50 on contract because the phone is subsidised.
WPCentral posts a study by Strategy Analytics who came to the conclusion that
the charts show pricing from launch and appears to demonstrate that it is quite normal for smartphone up-front prices to decline in the first 3 months after launch
It’s not that much of a wonder why the price of the Lumia 900 was that low from the beginning. I had always felt it was a 2011 handset in terms of specs and was priced accordingly, though in terms of overall user experience it was great value for the end consumer. Perhaps that’s why it did better than expected according to AT&T.
Anyway, we’ll find out shortly how the 900′s stats actually went; whether this might be PR fluff or whether their defence is justified.
Cheers John for the tip!
Category: Nokia
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normal life cycle lasts much longer than this, this is not “normal”
I think the phrase ‘price cuts’ has a special PR fluff phrase of ‘normal life cycle management’ and not actually referring to the life cycle of the entire product.
Yes may be few years back but now the technology life-cycle is about 6 months and product lose its actual price in half that time.
Nice aggressive pricing for consumers. Not so good for the manufacturers, except for those who can afford it (Samsung) and those who can keep their prices sky high knowing people will buy it anyway (iPhone)
Truly said, well SG3 are doing well for last 2 months but its already outdated in next couple of months when Apple releases its iphone.
I just hope Nokia will bring in new technology like rich recording, pureview and a good and new screen technology which puts Nokia way ahead of others may be for a year or so. Only Nokia can do that hope it does. The technology life-cycle is changing drastically every year they expecting to even fall down to 3 months.
iphone prices do fall after 3 months but not like other manufactures do.
While 3 things would be very nice and good(best), I kinda hope Nokia has something new in store ( unlikely ), I just wish they would introduce new features and innovations in a true flagship phone, instead of spreading them throughout the year.
“those 3 things”..
Don’t agree the next iPhone will out do the SGS3 in terms of specs. Seriously doubt they’ll put in a quadcore CPU. If they do that will be on a par with sgs3.
All Apple seem to be able to offer is apps, such as Siri and Maps, also high screen resolution which is only useful if you hold the phone immediately in front of your eye.
Yeah, Lumia’s price dropped faster than the usual Nokia models like 701, even the old N8. L800 price dropped almost half in 6 months. They released too many Lumias within a short time -710,800,900,610, in that order.
N9′s price drop was slower due to limited stock, 16GB dropped 40% after 9 months, 64GB dropped 30%.
L900, it will drop 50% before WP8 comes out.
At $200, I don’t think Lumia 900 would moved the way it did here in the USA. Thoigh the majority of us Yanks believe network speed seems to play a part in processing power (facepalm) well have it in mind that bigger is better, dual always better than single. $100 starting price was on the money for a device with low specs by numbers to numbers comparison, never mind the OS or how smooth the UI is…
Cutting the price to $50 kept the Lumia relavent, as did the new White and then Pink, making it free makes it an unavoidable deal. Yes, there might be some awareness of the lack of (official)WP8 upgrading of the 710 and 900, but I’m certain it didn’t drive the price down. It signals more of a “better model on the horizon” que.
Funny that Jay mentioned high price at launch, event subsidized. Verizon has the gaul to charge $300 for the latest model at launch, and not much becomes free to upgrade to either. Big Red sucks.
Off on a tangent here but I personally don’t like the “subsided”/bundled phone, contract price model. The phones are advertised as “free” or similar but the price is built into the contract. If you’re not careful and stay with the same phone and contract after you have finished paying off the cost of the phone you’re effectively paying much more for your service than you need to. I’d much prefer a model that is open about the prices: this is the cost of the phone this is the cost of the voice/data. You can pay upfront for the phone or monthly.
Like I said before, the only way I would even consider this phone is if it was offered on a 3 or 6 month contract on ATT for no more than $100.. a 24 month contract for it is just a no go..
Should begin with the first month when it’s actually started to sell…
nokia shouldnt have launched L900 and 800 in first place
is it me or anyone here thinks that everymedia outlet just hates Nokia??? it seem to be always blind analysis or bad news or stuff like that!