HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Global management consultancy Arthur D. Little today announced Nokia as the recipient of its first annual BRIC Award for outstanding success in the emerging markets. Announced at GSMA’s 2009 Mobile Asia Congress, the award recognizes the company with the most successful strategy for BRIC market growth.

Nokia’s emerging market strategy was chosen because it is most closely aligned to BRIC 2.0 – Arthur D. Little’s best practice approach to capturing the critical emerging market middle segment. Defined as the area in between premium and low-cost, this typically represents 60-90% of the addressable market for foreign MNCs, and is rapidly growing across all emerging markets.

Petter Kilefors, Global head of Arthur D. Little’s Strategy and Organization Practice: “As local emerging market players aggressively pursue global growth, Nokia’s story is a best practice model for how and why mature market companies must respond to avoid losing ground to new competitors.”

Despite major growth opportunities, most MNCs are not exploiting the BRIC middle segment. This prompted Arthur D. Little to conduct an in-depth analysis of MNCs to identifying one single “BRIC Market Winner” who exemplified best practice for emerging market growth.

Nokia’s success

To continue its early success in the BRIC markets, Nokia had to rethink its initial strategy, developing a BRIC 2.0 approach.

With numerous domestic and international players in the Chinese handset market, Nokia leveraged its global premium brand power to fight head-to-head with local players for increased share of the growing middle segment.

Expanding distribution channels and opening sales centers outside of China’s international cities, Nokia narrowed its focus to regions where it was most likely to penetrate the growing middle segment. Meanwhile, it developed simplified mobile phone models to compete with domestic companies on price and functionality.

Today Nokia is China’s mobile handset market leader, enjoying 38% market share in 2008. China is also Nokia’s largest market, with India, Russia, and Brazil all in its top ten global markets.

Arja Suominen, Senior Vice President for Nokia Communications, said: “It is more important than ever to take time to understand unique local customer needs in high-growth markets. Arthur D. Little’s fight-focus-simplify emphasizes how critical this is for global companies looking to grow.”

Full award presentation available at: www.adl.com/bricaward.