Nokia is  already losing the smartphone wars to Apple and Google in the developed markets.So the low end segment is where it is relatively insulated from competition from these technology giants.However local players in the Indian market are nipping at its heels even in this segment. It like a pack of dogs bringing  down a bigger prey . Nokia is trying to retain its dominant  share by introducing lower price feature rich phones but seems to me that is a losing strategy.With lower prices , Nokia hurts itself the most as it has much more volumes to lose margin dollars on. Would be interesting to see how much marketshare Nokia eventually loses as India is one of the most important markets for this company.It is already down to 60% marketshare according to the following article  from the 70%  it had in 2008.

New handset players in fray: Ringing in a desi tune – Economic Times

Nokia’s launch of a sub-Rs 6,000 full qwerty phone last month had a ring of insecurity around it. It was responding to the threat posed by the large number of Indian handset brands which have emerged over the past two years to take the market by storm. At last count, the number of new players stood at over 50.

These new players like Karbonn, Micromax, Zen, Lava, Maxx and others have been stealing market share for quite sometime now with full-featured offerings at astonishing lower price points. Consequently, Nokia’s market share has dipped from 70% in 2008 to under 60% now.