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HMD Global exec admits company 'created confusion' with Nokia naming schemes
- An HMD Global executive admits in an interview that the naming scheme for Nokia phones is confusing.
- The exec points to the introduction of the “Plus” variants as to when things got too confusing for consumers.
- Going forward, there will be less Plus variants; they could possibly be eliminated altogether.
HMD Global has done mostly a terrific job when it comes to reviving the Nokia smartphone brand, especially when you consider how the overall industry is in a downturn and competition is fierce.
However, that doesn’t mean everything has been perfect. One of the sore spots for HMD Global has been the way it names Nokia smartphones, which doesn’t appear to involve a clear system for consumers to determine which phones are right for them.
In a new interview, Gadgets 360 chatted with Pranav Shroff, a global general manager at HMD Global. During the chat, Shroff admits that its poor naming scheme is a sore spot.
“We owe it to our consumers — and generally everybody — to make sure [our product portfolio is] clear,” Shroff said. “If we have not made that clear, and I agree that we haven’t, then that is something we need to work on better.”
As an example of what Shroff is talking about, take the Nokia 7.1, the supposed follow-up to the Nokia 7 Plus. The Nokia 7.1 actually isn’t a newer, upgraded version of the Nokia 7 Plus, which leads one to wonder what “Plus” even means.
As another example, the phone at the top of this article is the Nokia 1 Plus — which is pretty confusing when you know there’s a competitor smartphone company called OnePlus.
The strategy for the future is to make sure to bring the simplicity that we always wanted to have.Pranav Shroff
“In hindsight, that’s where we created confusion,” he says, referring to the “Plus” moniker. “I think we introduced something like twelve or thirteen phones in a market like India. I don’t think consumers get that this is the previous generation, this is the newer one, this comes with a newer OS. So yes, it’s not super clear, and we need to do a better job at this.”
“We have a job to do there if we haven’t done it well enough, which I can see,” he added. “So yes, the strategy [for the future] is to make sure to bring the simplicity that we always wanted to have.”
When asked what the plan is for the future, Schroff makes things fairly clear: “The intent is to do a lot less Plus models [going forward], if not get rid of them.” He then reiterated, “we will make sure that we will bring the simplicity back, and the clarity of our naming back to how we had envisioned it to be.”
In other news, Schroff also committed to bringing the Nokia 9 PureView to India — the latest flagship from the company, which features five rear camera lenses.
NEXT: Nokia 2.2 announced: Who wants an Android One phone for 99 euros?