HMD looking to make headphones, tablets in India next year

As the year comes to a wrap, technology companies are already coming up with the roadmap for 2022. While new smartphones are obviously in the lineup of all smartphone majors, smartphone accessories are also becoming a huge point of attraction for many. HMD Global, the parent firm of everyone’s beloved Nokia, is no different.

In an exclusive interaction with India Today Tech, Sanmeet Singh Kochhar – Vice President for HMD Global (India and MENA) shared the company’s plans for the coming year. As per Kochhar, Nokia will focus on bringing more audio accessories to India in 2022. This includes products like TWS earphones, wired headphones and more.

“TWS earbuds and wired headphones are big markets right now and we are focused on these,” said Kochhar. He also mentioned that Nokia will get into different price bands within this segment with a variety of products. These products will be sold through both online and offline channels.

“Depending on the price band, we will have our audio offerings on both online and offline platforms,” Kochhar said. “It will likely be a 40 to 50 per cent online presence and the rest in the offline market,” he added. Kochhar also mentioned that Nokia’s massive retail network in the country will help with this offline sale.

“Audio accessories will serve as good companions for our phones, so we plan to double down on that,” he cleared.

So, do we expect a 3.5mm headphone jack in all future Nokia phones? Kocchar did not comment on this for now.

Having a look at its current lineup shows us that Nokia has a limited portfolio in the audio accessories category in India. The company only has two products on its list as of now. One is Nokia Power Earbuds Lite, priced at Rs 3,599, while the other is Nokia True Wireless Earbuds which cost Rs 7,499. As is clear, both of these are Bluetooth powered headphones.

Meanwhile, all its smartphones, and even the feature phones come with a 3.5mm headphone jack. Considering that Nokia will also double down on the feature phone segment, it is likely that we will see more wired headsets from the house of Nokia in 2022.

Other than the audio accessories, Kocchar also mentioned that Nokia will be focused on bringing new tablets to India. The company came up with its first-ever Nokia T20 tablet in the country ahead of Diwali. Kocchar said that the tablet is doing very well in the Indian market and that Nokia will continue to focus on it and expand the segment in the coming days. BusinessToday