HMD may discontinue Nokia Plus phones

HMD will reduce the number of Nokia phones with the Plus designation or even stop with that name altogether, a CEO of HMD Global said in an interview. The naming would be confusing.

For example, the direct successor to Nokia 7 Plus was called Nokia 8.1 and not Nokia 7.1 and that is something that may have confused consumers, Pranav Schroff, the chief executive responsible for product planning, said in an interview with Gadget360. “We will make sure to bring back simplicity in the naming, as we intended it to be in the first place.”

HMD Global started in 2017 with names like Nokia 8, Nokia 6 and Nokia 3 and it was planned to give the successors the same name. “In practice this doesn’t happen. The old model stays on sale and goes down in price, and then you get a bit of confusion.” That is why HMD switched to a name like Nokia 6.2 and 7.1.

The manufacturer has released many models in the Benelux since the beginning of last year. Those are 9 Pureview, 8 Sirocco, 8.1, 7 Plus, 7.1, 6.1, 5.1 Plus, 5.1, 4.2, 3.1 Plus, 3.2, 3.1, 2.1, 2.2, 1 Plus and 1. Other models were also released in other countries. The multitude of models has not given HMD more market share. According to IDC, deliveries in Europe fell by 32 percent. HMD is by no means the only one to have released many smartphone models. Samsung and Huawei, among others, use the same strategy. Samsung released about 25 different models at that time, Huawei around 35.