Cracking China's Rural Mobile Market

The rise of China's rural consumer base is a significant market force that is gaining the attention of corporate strategists at mobile phone makers: Companies like Motorola, Nokia, and Samsung have just begun to adapt their product design and marketing approaches to meet rural China's needs. As China's rural consumer base swells, multinational mobile phone vendors' strategists will need to get bolder and rearchitect their firms as culturally savvy, grassroots organizations able to engage rural communities as partners in the co-design, co-development, and co-marketing of their solutions in rural China. If these execs fail to lead this fundamental organizational transformation, their firms' ability to properly serve Chinese consumers will erode — along with their market share.