Tomi Ahonen’s market analysis Q1
With all the numbers about market share flying around the internet there is one source that is always worth a read; Tomi Ahonen’s blog. Not a person to post half baked stuff, he has posted his analysis for the first qaurter of 2011 based on the numbers of all major research houses.
There is no point in avoiding it, Nokia is freefalling down the charts for yet another quarter, let’s see how the numbers stack up on manufacturer level.
Rank . . Brand . . . . . . . Millions sold . . . . . . Market Share Q1 . . . . (market share Q4)
1 . . . . . Nokia . . . . . . . 24.2 million . . . . . . . 24% . . . . . . . . . . . . . (29%)
2 . . . . . Apple . . . . . . . 18.4 million . . . . . . . 18% . . . . . . . . . . . . . (16%)
3 . . . . . RIM . . . . . . . . 14.5 million . . . . . . . 14% . . . . . . . . . . . . . (14%)
4 . . . . . Samsung . . . . 12.6 million . . . . . . . 13% . . . . . . . . . . . . . (11%)
5 . . . . . HTC . . . . . . . . . 9.7 million . . . . . . . 10% . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( 9%)
6 . . . . . SonyEricsson . . 4.9 million . . . . . . . . 5% . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( 5%)
7 . . . . . LG . . . . . . . . . . 4.7 million . . . . . . . . 5% . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( 4%)
8 . . . . . Motorola . . . . . . 4.1 million . . . . . . . . 4% . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( 5%)
9 . . . . . ZTE . . . . . . . . . 2.2 million . . . . . . . . 2% . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( 2%)
10 . . . . Sharp . . . . . . . . 1.8 million . . . . . . . . 2% . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( 2%)
Nokia is still on top by a fairly decent margin, but it has dropped significantly. A 5% marketshare loss in a growing market and that for the company with the biggest in house manufacturing scale available.
Here’s another set of numbers, but on OS base. This will be some nice food for the Windows Phone bashers since Windows Phone 7 is losing out to the old and limping Windows Mobile.
Rank . . . Operating System . . Market Share Q1 . . . . . (was market share Q4)
1 . . . . . . Android . . . . . . . . . . 35%. . . . . . . . . . . . . . (30%)
2 . . . . . . Symbian . . . . . . . . . 25% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (32%)
3 . . . . . . iOS . . . . . . . . . . . . 18% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (16%)
4 . . . . . . Blackberry . . . . . . . 14% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (14%)
5 . . . . . . bada . . . . . . . . . . . . 3% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( 3%)
6 . . . . . . Windows Mobile . . . . 2% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( 2%)
7 . . . . . . Phone 7 . . . . . . . . . . 2% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( 2%)
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( 1%)
The OS level numbers are where the real fight is. Symbian isn’t number one anymore, by a big margin. And these numbers even include the sales of Japanese operators that also use Symbian.
Tomi also included his projections for Nokia for this year, and they probably won’t be far off from reality. Mr. Ahonen has been in the ballpark before with these kind of predictions.
Quarter . . . Market Share . . . Unit Sales . . . . ASP . . . . . Total Revenues of Smartphones
Q1 2011 . . 28% . . . . . . . . . . 29 M . . . . . . . . 146 Euro . . 4.3B Euro
Q2 2011 . . 21% . . . . . . . . . . 25 M . . . . . . . . 136 Euro . . 3.3B Euro
Q3 2011 . . 16% . . . . . . . . . . 21 M . . . . . . . . 126 Euro . . 2.6B Euro
Q4 2011. . 12% . . . . . . . . . . 17 M . . . . . . . . 116 Euro . . 2.0B Euro
I’ll be honest, I share his vision of the market. There are commenters both here and on other sites that often qoute the kind of marketshare Symbian has. While it is true that Symbian still commands a decent share of the market, the drop off it has seen over the past quarters has been alarming at best.
“But the february 11 announcment did that, Elop made a bad call.”
True, the man could have made that particular announcement better, but would it really have made a big difference? These numbers are all for Q1 related to Q4, the February announcement wouldn’t have had that big of an impact on the sales I presume. Besides Nokia didn’t have a real compelling portfolio to boost sales in the first place.
Nokia is bleeding marketshare bad with Symbian, period. How should that be interpreted? Is Symbian really that bad that it won’t sell? Probably not, but the competition has become so much better and Nokia hasn’t really made an effort to launch captivating devices that can boost sales.
I’m honestly curious how Nokia will look at the end of this quarter let alone the end of this year. (sadface)
Read Tomi’s article here
Category: Nokia
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Windows mobile 2% LOL
And it’s supposed to be much better than Meego?
It’s certainly more feature complete in it’s current state, though Meego i’m sure has potential.
well its about gazilion billion per cent more than the Meego marketshare…
projecting symbian to drop below Blackberry? i dont know about that considering they’re floundering as well (yet still maintaining their share)…
but i imagine we’ll see symbian drop away quite significantly by the end of the year
considering we aren’t seeing updates nor any news/rumors of significant devices TBR
The bigger picture is that nokia for that matter will sink as well what with Symbian dropping away and no sign of a WP7 device by(until?) the end of the year
he needs to be removed elop is Fucking up Nokia and Meego has mad potential more then any other OS on the market right now and the fool threw symbian and Meego for something that’s not even growing something is very wrong in this picture
Here’s the thing. I’m not a windows phone fan, but ultimately, everyone can pin their hopes on MeeGo and it could be great. But it turns out development is slow, or at least so say elop and one of his execs quoted by the businessweek article.
Windows Phone is out. It’s not got all the features it ought to have and that’s at least partly responsible for poor sales performance, perhaps they should have waited a year and had mango be the first release. But we do know what they are working on and what’s coming because they had a big product demo with a phone where most of the time they were walking us through the things the phone can do and talking about how developers can download the SDK now.
San Fransisco was the perfect place to give an hour or half an hour of all the great features and show why Nokia was dumb to ditch it, and do it with most of the action on a phone and how these features all work. Frankly, all they did was show how right nokia were, and that MeeGo is a long way off. Some people have told me that the handset UI project is just a reference platform and it’s supposed to be skinned. In which case a feature isn’t ready until a manufacture has coded a skin for it. In that case they could have done more of a mock upt to show what MeeGo Core can now do for a phone – a prototype skin to demo features doesn’t have to be perfect and doesn’t even have to actually work and this would have been fine to show what’s possible on a phone with MeeGo core.
Nokia may have a harmattan/maemo6 device ready, and they can call it MeeGo if they want, but i’d be suprised if it really is. And if it isn’t really Meego, I’d be extremely surprised if there is a real MeeGo mobile phone to buy at a retail store before Nokia has a windows phone device in shops. And exactly that was the worry – the speed of development.
they didn’t push meego like they where suppose to and elop made it worse by breaking the intel/nokia bond to actually make the development faster
Here’s the thing … I stopped reading after your first sentence.
> “True, the man could have made that particular announcement better, but would it really have made a big difference? These numbers are all for Q1 related to Q4, the February announcement wouldn’t have had that big of an impact on the sales I presume.”
What!? This is rubbish! You know we’re talking about THIS year, right? And the announcement was made just one month into the first quarter? Of course the announcement would have had a MASSIVE effect, it is the entire cause of the rapid decline in Symbian sales. I’m not really sure that you understand at all what is going on in the market.
The public thinks Symbian is in decline/dead, the press thinks it is, and most importantly the networks do too – Symbian phones being removed e.g. by Tesco in the UK and dropped in price elsewhere. Why do you think this is?! It is TOTALLY because of the COMPLETE major screw up of the announcement by Elop on Feb 11th. Now, if you read Tomi’s latest blogs, he alleges this was entirely deliberate by Elop to kill Symbian – there is a LOT of supporting evidence and reasoning behind this accusation (before some idiot replies here and just dismisses it). NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED if it hadn’t been for Feb 11th. THAT, and THAT ALONE is what killed Symbian.
Before that, sales were growing consistently (and very well) of Symbian phones. Market share was dropping slowly NOT because of Android alone (that had a small effect) but because of the HUGE and rapid expansion of the smartphone market as a whole and everyone sharing a piece of the pie.
> “Besides Nokia didn’t have a real compelling portfolio to boost sales in the first place.”
What TOTAL bullshit. The new S^3 handsets grew Symbian sales even faster than before their release, were extremely competitive and compelling, and were doing just fine thank you.
Seriously, it WORRIES me how remarkably ignorant the writers on this blog are. Jay does some good analysis but is really not that clued up about the market. Andre is an outright WinPho fanboy which is a shame as otherwise he has a bit of a clue on some technical aspects. And you sir, though well intentioned, CLEARLY don’t have a clue based on this article.
PLEASE mynokiablog, get INFORMED writers (or get your writers informed). I work in the industry, and while this is a good blog, you do write some utter nonsense sometimes. Sort it out! You’re well meaning, but you’re really not helping the situation when your writers are not aware of basic freely available facts about the market that Nokia is competing in. Seriously. This is not that difficult to solve.
Ninja, I totally agree with you. The February announcement looked like it was done in purpose for having Symbian killed in open space with everybody watching.
To offer a different reason of why Symbian’s market share is declining so fast. I believe it is not because the consumers heard about the announcement because the majority does not know and does not care so much about this kind of info. The main reason is that the message was very fast embraced by the carriers and that reflected almost immediately in sales figures starting with the countries where Nokia was not dominant slowly to their backyard.
The announcement was like a unconditioned surrender message for competition.
So if we dismiss the trojan horse plan to buy Nokia, Elop must be a really bad businessman, manager, leader etc. If the Microsoft buying Nokia plan tuns out to be true, then I wouldn’t trust this man to be neither my doorman. But with the money he’ll get for killing one of the best brands in the world, I guess he wouldn’t need to get a job after all
While I was playing with the thought to just remove this post, because it is yet another one of those ranting post I changed my mind and I’ll respond.
First off, if you are trying to educate someone don’t start with the tone you have in the above post. Don’t be so condescending.
What I used are Tomi’s numbers and I gave my own spin to it with my thoughts. The numbers don’t lie and if you don’t like my writing go somewhere else or just follow the source link it’s there for a reason.
Regaring the Feb 11 thing, I even say ‘I presume’ thus making it my opinion? Would you care to read a little bit more between the lines in the future and don’t start ranting immediatly?
If you believe that February the 11th is the doomsday for Symbian than so be it. But uptake would have been low anyway. The best device in the Symbian range is the N8, the E7 is a bit of an outsider and not for everyone (and not available Q1) thus leaving the C7 and C6-01 as primary ‘new’ devices. That is 3 devices total against a barrage of Androids. Symbian would lose out even without Elop’s announcement. But that doesn’t mean that his announcement was very poorly chose.
On a final note, this blog is freetime driven. We don’t have time to read any and everything besides what we do on a day to day basis. Aside from that a lot is also our opinion (in my case it is atleast) I don’t mind to learn a thing or two, but not from someone that acts like you.
BTW: A genuine question, how would Symbian be doing without feb11? And how do you think, as a symbian lover, it will be with symbian at the end of this year?
The E7, Nokia’s flagship for the enterprise market, the most highly priced of the Symbian devices, was released AFTER Elop said the Symbian was crap (“burning platform”) and was being killed off. What effect do you think that had on the sales? You can argue that he didn’t mean that, but that was clearly the perception.
The mind-boggling incompetence and stupidity of the 2/11 announcement still amazes me.
The E7 and it selling bad or good doesn’t matter to Q1 sales which what it’s about here.
But as much as people believe that Elopocalypse killed Symbian, I believe that probably 70% of potential Nokia buyers didn’t hear of the WP move until late march, early april.
As techblog readers (or writers) we tend to think in our own street and assume everyone else is fairly educated towards phones as well, but I would beg to differ.
Eventhough it was major news, you would have to be into that kind of news to notice it. Around me just 3 out of 20 knew about it, it’s true that it is no factual data but an indication at best.
However, the way Elop has brought the announcement is also beyond me. The one explanation is that it was pushed by MS. I won’t say that Elop’s planning on feb 11 was top-notch, but I won’t go as far that feb 11 was the sole contributor or a major factor to Symbian sales dropping.
now we get a lot of people here (philippines) online who discourage would-be nokia buyers and drive them towards other platforms.
They make ‘em feel inferior for choosing a nokia. Like c0d….
“But as much as people believe that Elopocalypse killed Symbian, I believe that probably 70% of potential Nokia buyers didn’t hear of the WP move until late march, early april.”
Ah but the carriers heard it loud and clear. Nokia is now in a weakened position to negociate deals for bulk handset sales.
But it’s all good, Mr Elop got to get his kuddos from north american media for his “candidly franck assessment of Symbian, Meego and Nokia”, the company he is supposed to be the CEO of welfare be damned.
Yeah, I was looking at the Q2 news that was recently released showing a crash.
But as much as people believe that Elopocalypse killed Symbian, I believe that probably 70% of potential Nokia buyers didn’t hear of the WP move until late march, early april
I disagree completely with this. Anyone doing research into a smartphone would have heard loud and clear. Especially from dealers.
Nice reply but next time please do not even *think* of removing quality posts like this one by Ninja just because they challenge your article. Either commit to that, or have the integrity to disable comments on this website altogether.
Words like rubbish, ignorant and bullshit aren’t elements of a good post in my mind. Therefor the subtle mention of thought about removal.
Ninja does make good points from time to time, but the way he (or is it she?) makes those points are not necessary. If my writing can be criticised that’s fair, but not in with words like bullshit and calling other writers besides myself fanboys.
I hope you understand my reasoning, removal is a last ditch effort for real bad posts. But I hope Ninja can make posts without the powertalk so we can all enjoy a discussion.
The problem w/ Ninja is that his world view is Symbian centric. He is NOT objective. This is a guy who claims nothing will EVER match symbian. He also claimed Symbian was perfect as is and needs no further updates. This was PR 1.0! He does write some good things….sometimes, but I would caution that his “analysis” is to serve one purpose and one purpose only…to put Symbian on a pedestal above all other OS’s, never to have any shortcomings and never to be surpassed. His “tone” is a very arrogant and condescending one to boot.
“The problem w/ Ninja is that his world view is Symbian centric. He is NOT objective.”
There are far many more that think that Symbian is absolute rubbish, he is just providing a counter point.
I agree that his delivery hampers his arguments, but go past that, and he has a point.
I agree that many think Symbian is rubbish. I don’t share that view. Read some of Ninja’s stuff and you’ll see his “counterpoints” are extreme to be generous.
It is not our policy to remove any comment at all, (If it was, I’d have banned and removed anything Ninja/Smith ever posts) however there are many a times when Ninja comments on things that are off topic, inflammatory and abusive to the author. We’ve shown more patience than most (As evident of a ban on All About Symbian – a place that should be his bastion).
We are constantly knocked for what we cover and how we cover it. We appreciate the concern but there are ways of putting things across without constantly putting people down and being rude. I can understand how such things can put our writers off.
I’d like to leave it with us trying to keep our comments open to challenge our posts/opinions. We love a discussion, but we’d also appreciate less aggressive behaviour and tone.
“We’ve shown more patience than most (As evident of a ban on All About Symbian – a place that should be his bastion).”
Contrary to what the name implies, AAS is *not* the place to go anymore for Symbian aficionados, and I have criticized them on several occasions for their hypocrisy and for turning their back so quickly and definitely on the Symbian community in their decision to support WP7 on a Nokia.
Their main objective these days is to hype WP7 – just listen/read to Ewan’s speeches lately about how great he thinks WP7 is, hyping the very features that previously were supposedly cons, and the hypocrisy is laughable and sickening at the same time.
So MNB is the better place to be for any Symbian lover right now (whether you like it or not!).
Not exactly true. Steve Litchfield is still a strong proponent of Symbian’s cloud independence, efficient use of resources and Nokia’s camera prowess. But even AAS had to come to grips with the reality that the OS is but one component in an overall strategy. Apple’s recent announcements show how quickly the big three (Google, Apple, MS) are moving into integrated cloud based services. This type of expertise will leave a go it alone strategy in the dust. Nokia was right to see this trend, though I do take exception at the burning platform communication method. But I highly doubt this memo set Symbian ablaze. As for the carriers…they move where the sales are…and are also interested in those devices that guarantee them future bandwidth revenue. The big three are playing this game…Nokia’s alliance with MS may well prove prescient in just 12 months. In the meantime, I will enjoy my N8, download as many apps & maps to my PC for backup as possible, and run it until it falls apart at the seams.
I agree about Steve, in fact I recently posted on directly on AAS:
“note: I think Steve is the most consistent person on AAS regarding Symbian – the rest of the staff seem to have already jumped off Elop’s burning platform and sailed away on the WM7 ship into the sunset…. ”
What I am getting at is how they are now hyping the very features which previously were cons according to them and where Symbian supposedly had the upper hand. And what I find almost offensive is how, Ewan in particular, now tries to sell the WP experience to the readers while completely denying/lying about what his/their opinions used to be regarding the competing platforms.
I.e. it is one thing for AAS to adapt to and accept the circumstances, but it is completely different to pretend those were always your opinions regarding the competition and completely deny your past views, without a shred of an objective analysis of that same past and what you used to stand for. Instead there is that constant and tiresome spinning of matters which I have also criticized them for several times, all while they keep adopting whatever Nokia decides without any kind of criticism or personal opinions – they often sound like infomercials when they do those kind of editorials.
Regarding Elop’s announcement I absolutely believe that was the deathblow to an otherwise very sick patient, which vastly deteriorated Nokia’s situation.
“The public thinks Symbian is in decline/dead, the press thinks it is, and most importantly the networks do too – Symbian phones being removed e.g. by Tesco in the UK and dropped in price elsewhere. Why do you think this is?! It is TOTALLY because of the COMPLETE major screw up of the announcement by Elop on Feb 11th. Now, if you read Tomi’s latest blogs, he alleges this was entirely deliberate by Elop to kill Symbian – there is a LOT of supporting evidence and reasoning behind this accusation (before some idiot replies here and just dismisses it). NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED if it hadn’t been for Feb 11th. THAT, and THAT ALONE is what killed Symbian.”
This is what a certain chris5 on another forum had to say on the subject :
“Elop set fire to the platform #
Posted Thursday 2nd June 2011 14:27 GMT
Nokia’s existing platform was probably shaky, but it looked strong to outsiders (and undoubtedly still has many strengths). That perception – whether justified or not – was critical to Nokia’s ongoing performance. Then Elop stepped up and announced to the world that Nokia was a ‘burning platform’ to be leapt away from as soon as possible. And – surprise, surprise – everyone is doing just that.
If the problems were really so grave, the transition should still have been done but presented as just one strategy among many, as if to compliment their existing lines. But no, Elop burned the whole lot in one fell swoop and destroyed any strength or credibility that remained (and I think it was considerable).
By way of contrast, look what Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple. The classic Mac OS was a burning platform, but he didn’t announce this to the world. No, he kept the market and existing customers on board whilst carrying out radical surgery behind closed doors. Apple was still a good company, and Jobs leveraged that strength to rebuild. Nokia is also a good company – but Elop has publicly and irreversibly trashed it in the eyes of the world.”
“Before that, sales were growing consistently (and very well) of Symbian phones. Market share was dropping slowly NOT because of Android alone (that had a small effect) but because of the HUGE and rapid expansion of the smartphone market as a whole and everyone sharing a piece of the pie.”
To illustrate Ninja’s point, another vision of the landscape when Elop decided to nuke Nokia’s main money maker to turn to his “former” employer, who as luck would have it, happens to have a struggling OS.
http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Screen-shot-2011-02-20-at-2-20-11.48.41-PM.png
Look at Symbian, going down in flames, and look at the Windows platform, taking the market by storm.
Symbian has to fight other OSes, the north american media and now the so called Nokia CEO, who wishes Samsung WP7 phones to do well, even Walt Mossberg pointed out that he sounds like a MS employee. But I know Stephen Elop is not a Trojan horse, he said so himself. It’s not his fault if he sounds and acts like one.
I think whilst Symbian was on a decline prior to announcement, Elop’s execution of that announcement accelerated Symbian’s fall. He rallied folks not just internally but let the whole world know that dang Nokia is in deep trouble even though the wider world had no idea what the hell is going on. Sure some may be seeing gradually the association of Nokia and low end, but not the image of a company in deep shit. This in part, possibly to justify the move to WP.
Some say perhaps:
1) Symbian should not have been axed (maybe they could have run concurrently quite beautifully)
2) MS partnership should no have been announced until a handset was ready soon
We don’t really know how much trouble Nokia was in for Elop and the board to agree that this was the right decision. If WP was the best answer, perhaps it needed announcement there and then to keep it relevant (just where would it be right now if it weren’t for the news that Nokia is joining in? Was it necessary to give WP/Nokia’s future that saving note? Could WP have fizzled out if it weren’t for news of Nokia coming to the rescue?) Symbian, as Jo Harlow would have us believe, was just too much work. MeeGo we recently read about (can’t really verify) faced an “oh shit” moment when the guys at the top realised it could be no where near the ready stage it needed to be.
Ninja, thanks for your concern over the welfare of this blog. We do what we can, and as much as we would love to be working full time in this industry, we can’t as this is just something done part time. We’ve jostled before on things we don’t agree on. Just because you’re in the industry doesn’t unequivocally put you in the right over someone who is not (not said but implied).
If you can bend space and time for us to duplicate our ability to do so many things at once, I’m sure Harangue and all the crew (myself included) will go on a rigorous retraining for your and our readers benefit.
Nice, Jay!
Jay,
1) Elop eloquently killed Symbian in Feb 2011 with his burning platform memo and the way how he announced the MS partnership. After this event Nokia began backpedaling telling us that they will sell hundreds of million more Symbian phones and will support Symbian until long after the introduction of WP. Still this was too little too late, no one believes that there will be anymore great things coming for Symbian – so why should anyone buy a Nokia Symbian phone?
2) You are right, WP is fizzling and becoming increasingly irrelevant (can’t even outsell win-mobile!). Nokia is the only reason why it might have a future! However, Nokia shareholders paid for this decision with a loss of Nokia shares of more than 40% since the WP strategy announcement!
That’s all well and good, but the guy deciding the strategy is paid by Nokia to earn more money for Nokia!
And not by Microsoft to potentially enable survival of Windows phone!
Or maybe Elop gets some compensation from Mr Softie? Nah, the numbers say otherwise. Or do they?
As an outsider, I am of the opinion the shareholders would’ve been better served if Nokia had announced a strategic alliance with MS and WP for the North American market whilst quietly working on a more comprehensive announcement when the first handsets were within 90- days of release. At that point, Nokia could’ve claimed that the development went so quickly and seamlessly that a broader alignment was the most effective choice going forward. Symbian could’ve been wound down in the process whilst continuing to serve the low to mid price smartphone segments, until such time that WP and s40 could do the job without Symbian. Sure, Symbian would’ve continued to lose market share in this scenario…but not to the same degree as the FEB11 approach. Maybe the 1.5Bio in cost savings might’ve been delayed a few quarters in this proposal…but the savings would still be achieved without the massive hemorrhaging of mind-share/market-share.
+1
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/21/stephen-elop-first-meego-device-is-a-2011-event/
Fixed, 21. June.
Nokia is finished. Even if Nokia is able to sell 80% of WP phones it will be the biggest fish in a small pond. The 11 February “burning platform” announcement has become a self fulfilling prophecy. WP is simply not for many of the people that have used Symbian. It is all about the ecosystem or shall we call it by it’s right name – MS Monopoly.
True, though i’m not sure the google or Apple ones are any better to be in in the end.
Linux ecosystem is the best
After today’s announcements/reveals from Microsoft and Apple about their cloud services integration, there was no chance that Nokia alone with their Symbian or Meego or OS could have survived in this new environment.
Possibly. One of the things we as outsiders do not really know is the full picture behind the decisions being made. I’m hoping it was because of something like this that they saw something had do be done. It was die slowly from gangrene or amputate that arm and wait for the prosthetic.
Unfortunately nobody cared enough to stop the severed vessels and the patient bled to death. Amputations should be performed by competent surgeons, wouldn’t you agree?
In this context Elop is a butcher that was asked to perform the operation because he supposedly knows how to cut limbs. And he did what he is best at – killing companies, like he did with Macromedia in 2004.
but of course, the higher the walls get, the harder it is to get in or get out.
Pfft. Monopoly.
Which is why it’ll be hard for any other platform to get a wide swath of iOS users to switch.
thats if you consider cloud based servicee to be wignificant… what with US telecoms getting rid of unlimited Data plans and increasing rates and finding new things to charge for (tethering)
i cant see cloud services having any impact for some time yet, if at all; its simply a micro niche feature that is attempting to assert significance
cloud tech’s future looks cloudy, eh?
And what US telecoms? The corps that force nokia to remove Wifi functionality in their phones during the early days so ppl use cellular data?
Yes, Apple recent announcements around a cloud based future really drove this point home and made Elop’s comments about a battle of ecosystems even more compelling. Just wish Nokia had made this move in a more systemic and planned manner…burning platforms doesn’t really convey a methodical plan to me.
The only reason android is doing good as an OS is because of it’s monopoly strategy. Let’s be real here, you will be expected to dominate a market when you have every brand backing you up.
Remember two things about Elop people:
1. The goal, as Elop told a group of engineers in Berlin on Feb. 29, is once again to “find that next big thing that blows away Apple, Android, and everything we’re doing with Microsoft right now and make it irrelevant—all of it. So go for it, without having to worry about saving Nokia’s rear end in the next 12 months. I’ve taken off the handcuffs.”
2. He was shocked about all the unused technology and software hidden in the research labs that wasn’t used yet in a consumer device.
he should have applied it to symbian and meego and made nokia stick out of the crowd but nope he went to MSFT and now they wont look any different unless he puts them in meego and symbian before wp7 handsets come out
Depends, but bolting cool features on to a piece of software can be the worst way to do things. If Symbian’s codebase was really messy or “crufty” it’s probably easier to build something from scratch who design includes these cool technologies, or who’s design includes ways to integrate cool features and technologies easily in the future.
And who knows, maybe they will add some stuff to WP7 devices.
I am afraid that most of us, consumers, won’t have a choice, but to join one of those so called “eco systems”.. kind of sad. I love my independent N8 running on poor old Symbian
Independant? You weren’t part of the Ovi/Nokia ecosystem then?
Yes, but you could choose how personal data was stored…in the cloud and/or device and/or PC. Much more device centric than the WP philosophy, IMHO.
Nokia’s marketshare was dropping even before the Elopalypse. Elop accelerated it. That can’t be denied. But anyone that thinks that Nokia should have kept on going the same as it was is dilusional. SOMETHING had to be done. I will say this, the jury is still out on WP7 but I’m not so confident it will succeed. Also, the manner in which the “announcement” was made was horrible.
Look, there is no doubt that Nokia needs to change something, that’s why they brought on a new CEO.
And you are right, Symbian’s market share started to decline way before Elop. However, Symbian unit sales increased quarter over quarter – until Elop announced the death of Symbian!
I repeat myself: Nokia’s market cap fell more than 40% since Elop announced the WP strategy. Or told differently: Elop’s WP decision cost Nokia shareholders $19 billion so far!
…or OPK attempted to hide the bad news with price cuts and channel loading. As the new boss, Elop was correct in taking out ALL of the DIRTY LAUNDRY; before it became part of his legacy as well.
“But anyone that thinks that Nokia should have kept on going the same as it was is dilusional”
Stabbing your main moneymaker for the sake of an OS which is struggling mightily (and from what I see, Q2 2011 for WP7 won’t probably be any better) and “keep on going the same as it was” are the only possibilities for you?
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/06/atandts-ralph-de-la-vega-windows-phones-not-selling-as-well-as/
And the USA is the market were they should be the strongest. Interesting times ahead in the Nokia MS saga…
Never said the MS route was the only alternative. I even said above that I have little confidence in MS/Nokia success.
NOK & MSFT
Whose job is it to market Windows Phone 7?
I cannot remember the last advertisement I saw for Windows Phone 7.
Seems to me that to be successful, you have to get the product visibility and name recognition up.
How about teaming up with NOK and/or a carrier, and the USO or similar organization to give away WP7 phones to service members?
I wonder how “mobile” Nokia’s location based services could be across ecosystems. At some point, serving multiple ecosystems with a world class bundle of services would certainly bring unprecedented scale and additional device demand. Being an early point of contact with location based data, across multiple ecosystems, is a game changer.