Nokia planning a new line of handsets dubbed Cseries
Interesting, very interesting. We are all familiar with the branding nightmare that is Nokia's higher-end line of phones. Eseries for business, Nseries for fun — but even fanboy blogs seem to have a tough time remembering how to spell the brands.
Context & Ripple Effects
Nokia has been fighting on two fronts since its first serious attempt to answer the iPhone in 2007: a fragmented high-end lineup and a brand scheme — Eseries for business, Nseries for consumers — that even enthusiast blogs struggle to keep straight. The pressure shows in the results: reviewers panned the N97 in early July 2009 as over-featured next to the iPhone, Palm Pre and Android devices, and Nokia publicly denied working on an Android phone days later.
A rumored third letter — the Cseries, reported by Boy Genius Report and unconfirmed by Nokia itself — would extend that letter-series architecture rather than fix it. It lands after other 2009 stumbles: the Comes With Music bundle drew only about 23,000 UK subscribers by April, while Nokia committed to LTE devices for 2010.
First-order effects
- If the Cseries ships, carriers and retailers would stock a third Nokia sub-brand alongside Eseries and Nseries, raising SKU complexity for a portfolio already hard to explain at point of sale.
Second-order effects
- Nokia would be spending marketing dollars teaching buyers what 'C' means at the exact moment reviewers say the flagship N97 loses to iPhone, Pre and Android handsets — money rivals Apple, Palm and Android OEMs spend on single-line messaging instead.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points to Nokia doubling down on segmenting hardware by letter-coded audience rather than consolidating around one platform identity — a tiered-hardware bet whose payoff depends on each new series clarifying, not further muddling, the lineup.
The trend: Facing the post-iPhone market, Nokia is responding with ever-finer letter-series segmentation of its handset line rather than platform consolidation.