RIM and Apple gain more smartphone marketshare at Nokia’s expense
Pledge your smartphone loyalty to whatever brand you wish, but the fact of the matter remains that more and more people are leaving the Finnish juggernaut Nokia in favor of devices from RIM and Apple. During Q4 2008, Nokia’s overall market share fell from 50.9 percent to 40.8 percent and smartphone sales dipped a whopping 17 percent to 15.6 million units. As always, one company’s loss is another’s gain and no two companies highlighted this fact more than more than RIM and Apple. Both more or less doubled their smartphone market share, which now stand at 19.5 percent and 10.7 percent respectively. Apart from the big three, sales of HTC devices were up 20 percent while Samsung saw its sales increase by an amazing 138 percent to 1.6 million units. Still, they each only command modest stake in the smartphone market at 4.3 percent and 1.8 percent respectively. We’re hard-pressed to think of a time where there has been such a large shift in market share for any mobile phone segment, but then again this is the first economic meltdown to occur during the age of the smartphone which has in turn meant fewer new models to snap up.
Nokia OS sucks.
If they’d make the N8xx series into phones, they might still have a lock & seal on customers. They’d also need to get thier hands dirty software wise if they were to ever do that.
BTW Nokia, CDMA(U.S.) users like exotic smartphones too.
@JakeyBoy
“Nokia OS sucks.” – right. so do “Microsoft OS” and “Apple OS” and “RIM OS”.
on the other hand, some suck less than the others. for example, the stripped down macosx used in the iphone sucks far less than windows mobile. rim’s os (is there a name for it?) also seems to suck far less than windows mobile. comparing rim’s os against apple’s is tough – rim doesn’t provide access to ANY system APIs, relying instead on java for all 3rd party apps. but…. rim at least allows those 3rd party apps to run in a fully multi-tasking environment (read: preemptive multitasking) whereas apple barely provides any notion of future developments in this direction, let alone providing such a feature today.
if only there were an OS that sucked less than windows mobile and provided BOTH native application support (official API access) and preemptive multi-tasking. WAIT, I’VE GOT IT! Symbian does these things! Nokia should start using Symbian! that would be great!!!
Oh if only Nokia would invest in and further develop the symbian operating system – you know it was designed specifically for mobile devices back in the day. oh man, oh man – nokia should BUY UP all the symbian rights and open source it!!! oh that’d be sweet! then nokia would be sporting a fantastic operating system and developers could see the inner workings clearly and officially and have absolutely no artificially manifested crap reasons to avoid the raw SPI access that’s truly needed to develop highly responsive apps.
just a dream though, isn’t it? just a dream. i think i live in a dream. or… wait a minute… right, my bad, not a dream at all – it’s reality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian_OS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry#Operating_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_OS
wellsaid bitflung, whole heartedly agreee
I love my BlackBerry Bold, but my friend has a N95, and it’s pretty awesome. But oh well, someone has to lose in the smartphone war.
Updating the visuals of Symbian would do wonders for Nokia. Symbian isn’t difficult to use and out of box features (on the device) can’t be beat by anything really. Sure, Symbian is typically for the business and “techy” users, but look at the Blackberry Bold. It proves that getting things done can also look sexy at the same time.
That’s because Symbian is clunky and doesn’t do what most of the other OSes do out of the box without add-ons. That and they only have one qwerty phone, which is not really what I want. I would love a combo of the N96 and E71, but I don’t really like either on their own.
Not really surprising, they’re both doing an excellent job. I’ve never really liked Symbian though, I’ve always found it very hard and clunky to use, which is saying a lot since I’ve been a Windows Mobile user for years.
loling @ bitflung
Also, is there really anything about the iPhone that qualifies it as a Smartphone? I’d say it’s basically a PMP with wi-fi and a phone radio in it.
@Ryan
“Updating the visuals of Symbian would do wonders for Nokia”
true. i’d even add the inverse, with a modest repharsing:
a. if [nokia updates the visuals] then [symbian would be well received].
~a. if [nokia fails to update the visuals] then [symbian will not be well received].
sad but true. people pick on apple (outside of the mobile phone industry, mostly) for “too mush eye candy”, but the reality is that we want toys that perform real world functions; tools that perform the same functions are just not as desirable. symbian looks too much like an old tool, rather than a new toy. it doesn’t matter what apps will run or how what type of access to the API they have, this fault will hurt symbian.
of course, there’s the whole “weakest link in the chain” thing here – for apple and rim the failures are in the backend functions of the OS. for nokia it’s in the frontend systems. for windows mobile the failures are just everywhere.
i’d say that right now, we don’t have a surefire winner for the future market. android? i don’t know enough about it to speak honestly about how it functions, so i’ve left it out of my reply. Palm’s WebOS? it looks sexy to me – but until it ships i’m a skeptic. (i want it to succeed, despite being a nokia fan myself).
so with the same blanket disgust i treat the PC world with, i claim that all mobile OSs suck right now. even if [rim, apple, nokia] each fix their one most critical flaw, the respective OSs would still have a ‘next weakest link’ that would prevent the OS from being a surefire winner in my book.
maybe i’m too picky. maybe i should install DosBox on my N95 and run Win95 on it. that’d teach me to respect S60v3.1
-bit
Nokia needs to make some of their high-end phones port over to Verizon. Add CDMA to GSM, don’t replace GSM to make it a world phone.
“Nokia OS sucks.”
LOL, what’s a Nokia OS? You mean Symbian? S40?
My next phone will have the “Nokia OS”, only on a Samsung. Nokia has really failed to innovate in handsets since the N95 and E71. Even the 4 month out N97 is behind and will fall behind more by the time it’s released, same with the N86.
Still, 41% of the ENTIRE market is still huge. Not as big as it has been in years prior, but still huge.
@Darwin
“That’s because Symbian is clunky [...]”
by clunky you mean poor visuals. yup. no real eye candy on most symbian user interfaces. note, however, that “Symbian” is to linux as “KDE” is to S60. that is, symbian doesn’t HAVE a user interface – the key noticeable differences between manufactures who sell symbian powered phones are in the user interfaces they choose, like how Fedora looks different than KUbuntu, etc.
“[..] and doesn’t do what most of the other OSes do out of the box without add-ons. [...]”
err – what? umm… i agree with Ryan H who posted, just before you, that ‘Symbian isn’t difficult to use and out of box features (on the device) can’t be beat by anything really.’
“[..] That and they only have one qwerty phone, which is not really what I want. [...]”
i googled ’symbian qwerty phone’ and got this as my first hit:
http://www.cnet.com.au/tag/qwerty-symbian.htm
just one qwerty phone? where do you live and why don’t they sell all these other qwerty symbian phones there? even nokia alone has a bunch of them: E90, E75, E71, E63…
“[..] I would love a combo of the N96 and E71, but I don’t really like either on their own.”
fair enough – i don’t like either of them on their own either. i want the N97 (another full qwerty nokia device, but it’s not shipping till june).
-bit
Appearance means a lot. Love or hate Apple, you have to admit it looks far more aesthetically appealing that Symbian ever has. The appearance is selling these phones and in a world where that seems to mean more than substance (i.e. American Idol, Presidential elections) that is what phones companies need to start focusing on.
What is a Smartphone anyway, in the definitions used here?
Obviously the iPhone is, since Apple are included, and presumably all Blackberrys are. Nokia N-Series and Nokia E-Series? You’d think so.
Some of the numbered Nokias have similar if not greater functionality when compared to – for example – the iPhone. Are these Smartphones? Probably not.
LG phones are presumably not “smart”, and some Samsungs are.
Is it the OS that defines it?
In that case, the issue is probably that – if you like the way a company designs phones – there is so much convergence between Smartphones, Businessphones, Dumbphones, Musicphones and Allsingingalldancingphones that people who would prevoiusly have been Smartphone users are now buying other “classes” of phone.
For example, the Nokia 5800 has been compared with the iPhone (whether it does well in that comparison or not is not the point). It is presumably not included in the Smartphone sales.
So if a Nokia person buys this phone rather than a N96, then that means Nokia is losing Smartphone market share?
If someone chooses a 5800 rather than an iPhone, does that mean Apple is losing Smartphone market share?
Not sure that the term “Smartphone” is as relevant anymore as it may once have been.
Yeah, the appearance is selling the iPhone here in my town too. But the return rate is almost 50%. why? because the “phone” doesn’t cover the most basic of needs of the consumer. Something as simple as MMS is driving return rates up in my area. Guess functionality is more important than style/appearance.
I agree that there is no substance in the musicians being shat out from American Idol. But the presidential elections? Seriously? Name the last time we had a president take the reins firmly in hand and be proactive in running the country versus being reactive like the past few have been.
nokia deserves to lose as they ignored the outcry of demands from T-Mobile (3G), VZW, and Sprint, the S60 model works only with ATT
they should get punished
S60>SE OS>S40
@ martin
Perhaps the only people really perpetuating the term smartphone anymore are the carriers. They get to charge extra $$$ every month if you want the full experience of your smartphone.
By att’s standards, the Nokia 6650 is not a smartphone, however it runs S60, full HTML, among other smartphone-esque capabilities, yet you only need the $15 data unlimited to take advantage of it’s full capabilites. Whereas my moto Q9h has basically the same functionality, but with a QWERTY keyboard, and WinMo, but it’s $30 per month.
Maybe it’s just carrier price gouging at this point.
@ Bitflung
I agree with pretty much everything you stated.
@Martin
I read an interview with Ralph De La Vega (AT&T Mobility CEO) said that the Nokia 6650 wasn’t technically a smartphone because it doesn’t have a full QWERTY keyboard. Here’s a link of the interview. http://tinyurl.com/aad8xj
Of course, each carrier and manufacturer has it’s own definition I’m sure.
@ Mingkee
The only thing I can think of for not really supporting Verizon/Sprint is because the primary market for Nokia is Europe then US. With GSM leading with like 80% world wide acceptance/usage, why spend tons of R&D time and money on something that’s virtually non-existant (CDMA) in the big picture. Also, Verizon is going to switch over to GSM anyways (so I read).
Well it’s clear that RIM and Apple are getting where they want to be. I can’t believe that Nokia was ever a juggernaut. If anything the only good phones they make are the N-series. Yet, iPhone definately takes home the prize for just looking like a smart phone, although it doesn’t always act like one. On the other hand it took RIM a long time to finally start focusing on just consumer like Blackberrys and not so corporate. Better late then never I always say. Might I add that they definately keep making further strides then other manufacters in regards to overall design and studiness of the phone i.e. 8900 and 9000. Although the Bold is a little BIG for my taste but what the heck. Lastly, I hope they keep doing a good jump and just keeping making better phones. Good job RIM/Apple. Now just add MMA/copy
RIM products and the Iphone are good/great phones, however, I think their selling share is due largely to popularity or wow factor. People come into my store who aren’t data users want a blackberry because so and so uses one. This happens with the Iphone as well. Some consumers come in waiting to get an iphone, because someone they know has one or they saw a commercial about it. Keep in mind some of these consumers don’t even own a computer to access Itunes. However, before i get yelled at, i do agree that the iphone does have the best web browsing experience. I think Nokia’s smartphone usually aren’t seen as smartphones. A lot of phones that U.S. only gets are flips or bar Nokias. A lot of people don’t have access or don’t know about the E series or the N series. A lot of consumers don’t realized there are GSM unlocked phones out there. I carry a E71 at work and when i bring out its shiny, thin, design consumers always ask “Whats that?”. Most love the design. So maybe its lack of tied devices to carriers that are E series or lack of PR for Nokia here in the U.S.
…just my thoughts.
Couple of things (and yes, I own an iPhone)- 40% still DOMINATES the market. Blackberries (RIM) are the next most powerful player, and they have just under 20%, that means there are still TWICE as many Nokia s60 devices being sold as blackberries, and that is more or less without a presence in the US/Canada (that’s a whole other issue though). Secondly, is it possible that Nokia isn’t selling less smartphones, simply that everyone else is selling more? I assume that the smartphone market is getting bigger every year (heck I got my first smartphone 3 years ago, and I was in the first wave at work, now I think our custodians have blackberries), so maybe Nokia just isn’t growing as fast as the others (Apple, RIM, HTC, Samsung, etc). That kind of goes back to Nokia ignoring North America. I know that for years Europe was WAY ahead of us over here on this side of the pond in regards to phones. However, we are finally catching up, and that market is being filled with players OTHER than Nokia for the most part (those of you from the US and Canada, honestly, how many people do you know, non-geeks, who have a Nokia smartphone?). RIM and Apple have a pretty strong presence and marketing strategy in North America, and seem to be carving up the market between them, with a healthy dose of HTC as well. Just my 2 cents
@TRV$
“Perhaps the only people really perpetuating the term smartphone anymore are the carriers. They get to charge extra $$$ every month [..]
By att’s standards, the Nokia 6650 is not a smartphone, however it runs [..] smartphone-esque capabilities, yet you only need the $15 data unlimited [..] Whereas my moto Q9h has basically the same functionality, [..] but it’s $30 per month. Maybe it’s just carrier price gouging at this point.”
i agree 100%. actually, i might have a legitimate reason to say something greater than 100%, maybe 110% (side note: i HATE it when people say something like ‘give me 110%’ — what, did they fail all math courses since grade school?)
why 110%?
i think you get MORE from the non-smart-phone plans. more ability, less $$. i can tether my mac to my N95 with zero-hassle and zero-extra billing : can’t do that with the ‘legitimate’ att $30-plan-phones. (i even setup my phone as a walking hotspot to provide tethering type service wirelessly to 5 machines at once). i can VPN through my N95 as well, and i’m suppoed to pay, what is it, $60 for a plan supporting VPN connections?
so, i agree 110%. that is, i agree with what you said, but i hold the same viewpoints more strongly than you voiced them. the difference in price over time is a fundamental reason why i’ve kept my N95 and will replace it only with another unlocked device which i don’t have to tell AT&T anything about.
Hahahha Apple wants to Buy Rim? And Nokia bought Apple and its owned by Google?
Exactly my point! You know that the carriers are aware of the capabilities of the lesser plans, but what can they do? if they all of a sudden announce an “all data plan at $15″ then there will be a class action lawsuit for having been charged twice as much as necessary for X amount of years on the “smartphone” plan.
I’m definitely going to look into the unlocked phone market….