Every manufacturer secretly dreams of rolling out something like the Nokia 8800 one day. A premium solution with low production costs, tremendous image of a fashion-savvy phone and sales that are way beyond expectations. However, nobody has managed to repeat the trick pulled off by Nokia, and all attempts have been getting cold welcomes from consumers. The end of 2007 sees a new twist in this story – phone makers are getting serious about precious metals and stones in their offerings. Remember the Motorola RAZR2 Luxury Edition with its 18- and 24-carat gold parts and the rear finished in snake leather. This beauty will set you back about 1000 Euro, just like its league mate, the Nokia 8800 Sirocco Gold.
However it is not Nokia’s primary offering – the Sirocco line is a sub-class of the Nokia 8800 family, and that’s all there is to it. What it is really aiming to accomplish is to take everything one step further and increase the phone’s price, otherwise, Nokia portfolio for the top price-bracket won’t be seeing a substantial sales growth. And on top of that the arrival of new and steeper models justifies hefty price tags of junior offerings, especially as far as fashion-savvy phones are concerned. This is a decent trick that boosts prices for this particular maker’s products in general and drives them up to a slightly higher price segment. This worked out for the 8000-series, why shouldn’t they believe it will do the job these days as well
From the empirical point of view, the price of any premium model can grow up to the level when it goes for as much as 1\2 of a junior Vertu-branded model, in other words – 2000 Euro or so. Past this watermark, the price might get consumers thinking – whether they are willing to wait some time and get a Vertu, since its life cycle will be longer anyway (Vertu doesn’t tend to revamp its line-up with never-ending announcements, depreciating original solutions). That’s why we have all reasons to expect the company to start making its way in this direction.
The word “Arte” stands, like you probably have already guessed, for “art”, which is a truly profound act on Nokia’s part – while it kept the 8800 number in place and thus put the new offerings in one line-up with their predecessors, on the other hand, for some time it will be very easy to get lost in names and order of releases (which model came out when). Arte’s generic design also adds to this confusion. However for the phone’s target audience it becomes vitally important to emphasize that they own the latest and greatest handset of the series, rather than some already-long-in-the-tooth original Nokia 8800 – they want everyone to know that they are at the cutting edge with their Arte, or, even better, Arte Sapphire. This principle is what all sales of this series hinge on – Nokia needs to roll out new, and, curiously, more expensive solution, working in a way opposite to the mass market; in this case every next product should wear a heftier price tag, rather than drop in price.
