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...phone. While an iPhone requires around 1,000 components, Garcha says Nokia's 5800 needs only half that number. "Having an extra 10 or 20 dollars on your bill of materials doesn't matter when you're selling your phone at $600," he says. "Think about making it a smart phone at $100 a few years from now: $20 of cost is 20 percentage points of margin. It actually becomes very important...
...Nokia's real genius is simply in selling phones in more places than any of its competitors. From Indian mountain villages to towns on the dry plains of northern Nigeria, Nokia is everywhere. Supplying the end user with a smart phone in Western Europe and America is typically the job of cell-phone operators who will even subsidize the cost of a device in return for tying a buyer to a monthly plan. Not so in emerging markets, where users typically buy their phone independently. That means manufacturers need their own "very efficient distribution," says Sanford C. Bernstein's Ferragu...
That kind of presence in emerging markets helps explain why Nokia is blurring the boundary between smart phones and cheaper handsets, and trying to entice customers to trade up. In recent months, the firm has unveiled a slew of devices aimed at developing markets, some costing as little as $60. That might seem a lot to pay for someone earning a few hundred dollars a month, but for many people in places where access to electricity is hit-and-miss at best, a good phone can double as a computer, an MP3 device or even a video player...
That outlook no doubt includes extending smart-phone services beyond major urban areas. In rural India, where Nokia controls around four-fifths of the mobile-phone market, according to Bernstein research, locals may not be quite ready for smart phones yet - but they will be. At the Mobile and More outlet in the city of Gwalior in central India, co-owner Gaurav Kukreja's best seller is a no-frills 2G Nokia. But, Kukreja says, "younger people from villages often go to cities to study. They come back well-versed with new technology, and with aspirations. They want the latest...
...smart idea with a silly acronym. WWOOF, short for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, connects cash-strapped travelers with farms in need of extra hands. The lodging-for-labor combo means volunteers pay only for transportation, plus a small fee for access to host-farm listings in one of the 92 countries through wwoof.org Rita Garand, a stay-at-home mom in Montreal, loved her stint on a lavender farm in Italy this May, where her family spent five hours a day weeding. But would-be WWOOFers should ask about specifics, advises Mark Phillips, a Boston sales associate...