Nokia Dethroned As Top Phone Maker By Samsung 134
A reader writes "PCMag's Angela Moscaritolo writes: 'Samsung is expected to account for 29 percent of worldwide cell phone shipments, up from 21 percent in 2011, when it nabbed the No. 2 spot in the market. Meanwhile, Nokia's share this year will drop from 30 percent to 24 percent this year. Nokia had held the top spot in the mobile phone market since 1998.'"
Not just highest sales of smartphones, but of all cell phones.
Re:I know you won't want to hear this (Score:1, Interesting)
I think people (mostly US consumers) miss a few very important points about Nokia. I'll put my hand up as a Nokia fanboy only because I have the 900 and threw the iPhone and HTC phones in the bin and I'm very happy with the Lumia, I can only imagine how much better the 920 is.
Aside from my personal likes about the phone if you look at the impacts it has made in Europe further it's reliance on Microsoft has and will pose to increase NOK (which has jumped from 1.70 to 4.20 in the past few months) and I'll tell you why.
Elop, ex Microsoft. 1BN exclusive contract with Microsoft which shows the market that though Nokia didn't pick Google they did pick someone capable of delivering sound solutions, yes Micosoft, people still buy it, people still use it, though its hated by many it's still used by most. If I were an investor I'd look at Nokia being the kind of company which possesses a golden parachute in a sense, I.E if Nokia does die then who would be left around to pick up the remains? that's right Microsoft.
Nokia also has legacy in a commercial sense. It's an old company with a lot of very valuable agreements that were put in place years ago which if leveraged at the right time with the right product can put Nokia back on top. Their agreements with European and Asian providers perhaps being the most valuable.
Nokia has made bad moves in the past I'd say even today they aren't making the best moves in some areas with the desire to sell off certain assets as of late but I'd also say Elop has given a pretty indestructible, hard to lose position and that is to run Nokia with it's big brother Microsoft looking out for them.
Great Hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
Just saying that going with Android makes Nokia another "me too" company totally discounts that Noka phones are always beautifully designed and very robust.
The last two nokia phones I've had have terrible software problems but I could not fault the hardware. Where as my experience with HTC phones one had a joystick that broke and my current HD2 has had the USB power connector fail on me.
If they had gone with Android they could have easily competed with Samsung and had a good percentage of the Android smartphone market. The problem is Elop somehow managed to convince people that with Windows Mobile he could restore past glory and be like Apple. Sure they now have nearly have 100% of the Windows Mobile market, but whats that at the moment? 1% of smartphones?
The thing is Elop does n't understand the industry, he came from Microsoft. He's a Microsoft man, the question at the time should have been something like this "We have two available OS options, one has a proven record of being something customers want and the other has failed pretty badly up to now." . Which one would you go with? Sure you will have to compete with Samsung with the same OS, but they're now competing with Apple, Samsung and everyone else with a different OS and failing badly.
Regardless, it's a moot point now but I don't recall anyone at the time saying this was going to end well for Nokia.
The one thing I know about Samsung (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess I would call them the anti-Sony.
In Related News (Score:4, Interesting)
Nokia has been the #1 phone manufacturer. Huh. I must get too much of my news from Slashdot.
(my first phone was a TDMA Nokia and it was a beast - practically unbreakable with good speakers and microphone; how I miss the quality of those days).