Vodafone is going to kill off its Wayfinder service due to competitive pressure from Nokia and Google. Here are some select quotes from Mobile Industry Review- “Due to the huge competitive pressure generated by the market entry of Nokia and the upcoming launch of Google navigation, Vodafone is proposing to close down Wayfinder…” “We could not charge for something that others gave away for free…”
Ewan over at MIR agrees with this decision, but to me it could be shortsighted. I understand that Nokia and Android phones form a large part of Vodafones sales, but what about the other phones they sell? The millions of other phones? One way to compete with free is to make your own service free and use it to drag customers through the door. It’s as good a loss leader as I can think of.
