Nokia Won’t Play iPhone’s Tune

As we know, oligopolistic markets are characterized by a few large firms which act interdependently based on the actions of one another. Examples of such interdependence may include pricing and output behavior, advertising behavior, sales and promotions, non-price competition, services offered to consumers, and so on. The “game” of oligopoly is played with one very important goal in mind: maintaining market share in the face of competition from rivals.

In a previous post I discussed some of the strategies Apple has used to break into the oligopolistic market for cellular phones, which it recently did by introducing the thus far wildly successful iPhone. A chart in that post showed that as of earlier this year, the dominant firm in the mobile phone market was Nokia, with a market share of 35.1%. Apple was not even a competitor in this market until July of this year, which saw the successful launch of the iPhone, causing some of the incumbent mobile phone makers to pay close attention to the newcomer’s behavior.

Nokia executives, however, appear to be in denial of the potential threat posed by the iPhone to its dominance in the cell phone industry:

Nokia managers would never admit to being influenced by the Apple iPhone, which mobile phone industry insiders regard as clever but technologically unimpressive. “We don’t determine strategy based on the competition,” insists Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia executive vice-president and general manager for multimedia. “The consumer is our compass.”

Continue Reading »

China Mobile negotiating with Apple to carry iPhone

Try try as he might, Steve Jobs and Apple can barely launch their hottest new product, the iPhone, before the Chinese have copied it and put a knockoff on the market as quickly as you can say “can you hear me now?” But what is Apple doing making a cell phone anyway? Isn’t the mobile phone market pretty much dominated by a few big name companies already? How will apple ever survive in a market with such well established firms as Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola?

The answer is through product differentiation. The iPhone is truly an innovative little gadget. More than an MP3 player, more than a cell phone, the iPhone has features that differentiate it from most products available from the established firms in the mobile phone market. Like any firm, Apple advertises its iPod through commercials and other media in order to inform consumers about what makes its product special. What message does the following advertisement send about the iPhone?

Continue Reading »

Wetpaint, the free online wiki service, has stepped up its use of non-price competition in an attempt to increase its market share in the wiki market. In addition to releasing several Mac vs. PC parody videos meant to showcase the user-friendly, customizability of Wetpaint’s wikis vs. its rivals, the company also announced this morning that it would be offering ad-free wikis to educators!

As a user of Wetpaint since early this year, the distracting presence of advertisements bothered me; the decision to provide educators with ad-free wikis is huge, and makes Wetpaint even more attractive as a platform for hosting online learning communities for teachers of all grade levels.

You may be thinking, “Huh? There’s a market for wikis?” Well sure there is. Just because something’s free for us consumers does not mean it’s not a profit oriented business. Wetpaint and its rivals compete for consumers in an oligopolistic market in which competition is not based on price (since its products are essentially free), rather on product differentiation based on features and communicated through advertising and public relations.

Continue Reading »