Thursday, 18 September 2014

Jolla towards new markets: India

Star of India. Image by Ted Rufus Ross


Jolla launched soon in India with online market Snapdeal


Jolla will soon launch their smartphone to India, partnering up with online retailer Snapdeal.com

 Update: Launch Delayed
Update 2: Launch Event September 23, 2014





Update September 19, 2014:
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Jolla Launch Event in Delhi, India on
Tuesday, September 23 10am (UTC)


There's a countdown timer also at Snapdeal's Jolla page, and finally also Jolla shared the upcoming luanch date on their official Twitter account:

 Yesterday, September 18, three sources confirmed Jolla Launch Event, latest sharing that it'll take place in Delhi, India

 Via Ndtv: The company has started sending official invites for a September 23 event with a tagline that says, "Join the unlikely on September 23, 2014." The invite clearly confirms that the Jolla smartphones will be exclusively sold via Snapdeal

Via India Today: Jolla, a smartphone company founded by ex-Nokians in 2011, on Thursday sent out media invites for an event on September 23 where the company would launch its first smartphone in India in partnership with Snapdeal

Via gizbot: Today, e-commerce giant Snapdeal has already started distributing invitations to its September 23 event, which is taking place in Delhi. There's no obvious hint at what to expect, but it's not hard to make a few guesses.

 Update September 1, 2014:

Jolla is, in overall, a very interesting company and they seem to have an exceptional operating system Sailifsh OS. Jolla has gained a nice interest levels in social media too, startup100.net ranked it 6th most interesting startup in Finland just recently.

However, Jolla has been critisized for their informating policy regarding both customer service and news. They have improved in this, but there's still a lot to do - for example the latest official press release still states that Jolla will be available India within a month (released July 18th), and the only corrections to that can be seen as two replies in Twitter.

While waiting the launch, let's have a look at the interest towards Jolla in India, according to Google's search engines, and have a word on how the delay might have affected to that. The interest:

The interest reached the maximum at November 2013 when Jolla was launched in Finland, as Jolla had nice visibility in the news sites. If we give value 100 to the interest level in Finland back then, on last month we were at level 30 in Finland and at level 2 in India. Seems like a very small level right under the launch, doesn't it? And we haven't seen much of hype or news around the launch either. Is there a purpose for such a silence, is this intentional?

Looking at the Hong Kong interest levels, there was a steady rise in interest during the 3 weeks before the launch. In opposite to that, in India the press release (July 18th) has practically lost its value in the past weeks:


So, organizing the launch in Hong Kong with operator 3 Hong Kong was a success but in India with Snapdeal it just doesn't work? Or did the nice VIP Package competition (August 1st - 9th) add up to the interest in Hong Kong?

Taloussanomat, a Finnish business magazine, asked earlier if Jolla is taking a risk granting exclusive rights for such a competitive online marketplace in India (read below: Update July 19th).

We don't know the reasons, as nothing has been shared. We only know that the launch is delayed. Well, luckily the worldwide interest of Jolla remains steady, showing just an expected "summer bumb" during the last 6 months:
Update August 18, 2014:

We expected this was the date when Jolla would be available in Indian markets via Snapdeal, but obviously there's been a delay. Jolla shared this tweet today, not nice to read it but what is nice that it was published today instead of keeping us on hold:

 Update August 5, 2014:

You can now sign up on Snapdeal to be the first to know: http://www.snapdeal.com/offers/jolla/

Update July 19, 2014:
  • Jolla phone is available to order to India via snapdeal.com before August 19, 2014
  • Snapdeal has exclusive right for the Indian markets and according to Juhani Lassila, Head of Communications at Jolla, the agreement between Jolla and Snapdeal includes marketing efforts by Snapdeal
  • Snapdeal has 25 000 000 customer base. Snapdeal sells many other big brand phone models, and local brands with remarkable cheaper prices.
  • Taloussanomat asks if Jolla is taking a risk granting exclusive rights for such a competitive online marketplace. 
  • Jolla differentiates with it's unique operating system Sailfish OS and Jolla's patented smart cover "The Other Half" which is able to provide extra content to the phone.

Original post: News In short

  • Jolla phone will be launched in India by online retailer Snapdeal.com
  • Information is confirmed by both Jolla and Snapdeal
  • Price for India is not yet revealed. In Europe Jolla is sold for 349€
  • Only 21% of the population of 900 million people owns a smartphone
  • Snapdeal trusts that Jolla can offer a differentiated value proposition to their customers
  • Jolla hopes to offer affordable prices for Indian customers via a Taiwanese manufacturing partner
  • After India, Jolla is planning next launch to China 
Earlier during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain (February 2014) Jolla has revealed that they have plans towards Russia too. News below doesn't mention Russian markets at all, but according to this earlier information it's still possible to take place already before the launch to India.

Whatever the order of countries might be, Jolla is entering the global markets fast. The first Jolla phone was delivered just a while ago, November 27, 2013. Jolla (the phone) is powered by Sailfish operating system which is also developed by Jolla (the company). The OS has received regular updates monthly and customers have been satisfied with the speed of development offering new features and bug fixes for this young but promising phone. 

Review Jolla Blog, among all the other community members, welcomes all new customers from Russia, India and China to join the Unlike Community. We share the love and force of Doing It Together! Sails up Sailors, it's India calling! Let's welcome our new friends!

Sources:
- Jolla Press release
- Gulveen Aulakh, Economic Times, India
- Taloussanomat (Finnish news magazine)
- Google Trends (Interest data gathered August 29th)
- Ndtv, India Today, gizbot (September 18 update)
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Published: July 18, 2014 3:30 UTC
Updated: September 19, 2014 12:59 UTC
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