Nokia has scrapped its plans for a single-brand retail presence in Russia and will close all of 50 of its existing Russian stores in the near future, reports RIA Novosti, citing an exchange with Nokia Vice President Erik Bertman, head of Nokia Eurasia. As of yet, there’s no official confirmation of the news on Nokia’s company website.
According to Bertman, Nokia will bet instead on online sales, developing its own online store to include delivery to 100 Russian cities, as well as maintaining a presence on large retail and telecom networks the company has identified as trading channels with good traction.
The firm will also develop Nokia-only departments within partners’ networks, he added.
The executive decision was made in May, the Nokia vice president explained, although he declined to specify any timeframe for the across-the-board store closings and still named Russia among the company’s “key markets.”
The move must have been prompted by, among other developments, the loss of Nokia’s long-standing Russian partner, Nosimo, which ran a network of 43 Nokia single-brand outlets across Russia. In May, Nosimo bowed out of its partnership with Nokia and instead teamed up with better-selling Samsung.
Nokia is still the number one mobile phone brand in Russia. The brand is particularly dominant in the lower-end of the market, but its share of the smartphone market has fallen dramatically over the last few years, while Android-supported smartphone are gaining popularity.
