Nokia’s shares are down 6.02 percent today on news that Nokia suffered an $834 million loss due to falling handset sales. In this environment it’s easy to wave this away as a crisis blip but there may be something more afoot.
Nokia blamed the loss on component shortages, a valid concern. Apple has been buying up all the flash it can eat and companies like LG and Samsung are blowing out feature phones to directly compete with Nokia’s lower-end models faster than anyone thought possible.
Here’s what could be happening. Bear with me. First, we posit that Nokia is selling very little in America and much more in Europe and developing countries. Mobile is a young person’s game in Europe and Nokia is a young person’s phone. With youth unemployment at 29% in some countries (BusinessWeek did a piece on this. I embedded a video below.) you’re dealing with a consumer who is severely constrained in terms of disposable income. Nokia phones last for years and you can get by with one Nokia without upgrading, provided you’re only texting and making calls. So Nokia’s own quality bit them in the hindquarters this time.
Nokia is not a line for early adopters. Their phones, while exciting on some fronts, are vanilla on the aggregate. They still have the number one spot in terms of sales, but I worry that Nokia won’t be able to turn around if it dips below one of the Korean manufacturers.
I’m obviously being very bearish here but Nokia’s line-up has been solid for years and these days “solid” isn’t good enough with a more plugged-in audience. I love Nokia’s products and culture and so, like a mother, I worry.
Thoughts? Europeans want to chime in?
One thing I learned working 2 years in equity research is NEVER believe what management says. IMO, its not componet shortages- its lost market share. I don’t know anyone with a Nokia, but I’m in US so maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt it.
Oh, i think we all know that.
John, this really is bad journalism. Did you even listen to the Q3 call?
Let’s look at the facts, shall we?
“Nokia suffered an $834 million loss due to falling handset sales”
Or, it was the 1,107 million Euro write down for Nokia Siemens Networks. The Handset and Services division actually made a profit of 785 million Euros.
As for sales, they were up 5% quarter on quarter although down 5% compared to the year on year figures. Samrtphones were down to 16.4 million from 16.9 million quarter on quarter but up from the 15 and a bit million of last year’s quarter.
Nokia do have issues with the high end market and the N97 has been a disaster (the N97 Mini is ample evidence of that) but the other lines do well.
To put it in context, the iPhone 3G/3GS sold about 2.8 million units outside the US in Q2. Nokia’s INCREASE in units from Q2 2008 to Q3 2009 was over 3 million units.
Nokia dont have a presence in the US so the expanding market there isn’t going to affect them. However, they increased smartphone sales between Q2 2009 and Q3 2009 in every market except the US and Greater China. In fact, if you want to se how ‘badly’ Nokia is doing, they sold nearly 4 million more smartphones in Europe than they did the previous quarter (27.1 million compared to 23.3 million) again more than total European iPhone sales and outdistancing all other competitors by a huge margin.
John, this is what annoys me – people look at these numbers and jump to the wrong conclusions. Nokia DO have issues and the desperately need to get their high end strategy right but they dominate the phone industry both in terms of feature and smartphones and that really isn’t going to change over the next few years. You’re right that there is continued pressure from Samsung and LG but they simply don’t threaten Nokia yet.
Sorry for the rant but this sort of misrepresentation annoys me.
Oopsies. Just noticed the figures I quoted for Europe were for total phones not just smartphones.
Still, if you assume that 15% of them are smartphones that’s still pretty good.
If you want journalism – go read the WSJ. If you want breaking tech news and opinionated analysis then simmer down and keep reading Techcrunch. Either way, you can argue with the thesis, but don’t cry journalistic foul just because you disagree with the method.
+1
I agree that this is an awful article with no research at all. Mark A, you should have just written the piece instead because you actually know what you are talking about.
Jake,
it’s not the method, it’s that John has apparently done no research at all. To ascribe the loss entirely to handset sales when the major figure is in respect of a write down in excess of a billion Euros and which relates to an entirely different division of Nokia’s operations is either lazy or incompetent.
Except for the part where he quoted the total handsets instead of smartphones.
@Scott
And which I mentioned in a follow up post. John has yet to correct his article.
Yes, Nokia’s phone can be more vanilla, and will last longer on an average user’s hands.
I’m a Portuguese guy, and I live in Estonia (next door to Finland) And yes, Nokia is ubiquitous in Europe. But not as much as it used to be.
I see less people with a nokia then I did a few years ago
A few years ago when someone (young or new) was going to get a new phone, Nokia was the default option. Their menus were intuitive, it was easy to figure out how it worked, and the learning curve of using a new handset was very minimal (because the menus were always the same).
This is not the case these days, as mobile phones evolve so does the OS, and Nokia has a lot of catching up to the likes of Apple, Samsung, LG.
I tend to think that, unlike what the article suggests, in Europe it’s the old folks that use Nokia, and the young (16-30) that use a different brand.
I second that.
I live in Norway and people around me are literally throwing their Nokias away to replace them with iPhones and Android phones.
Funnily it’s really the older generation that sticks to the Nokias. My parents both still use their old, trusty Nokia phones – so no sale here either.
True, I live in Greece where nokias are abudant (best vanilla handsets of all, imho). they are easy to use, low on radiation and so ubiquitous you can almost always find a nokia charger nearby.
However i need a smartphone – so i don’t have to be in front of my computer all the time. Nokia needs to get onto the smartphone bandwagon (it isn’t really there yet)
cell phones have become a fashion. It was Nokia who understood this first which is how they overtook Motorola at the time. But now Nokia has become out of fashion. As the article said, their phones are vanilla, they haven’t managed to keep up with the time. They need a disruptive product, like the iphone, like the Nokia phone was 10 years ago, to climb back.
…also the high quality “fashion” Nokia phones are not available in the US.
Note: The average Joe will only buy a phone that is available at the carrier’s kiosk in the mall. An unlocked phone that is offered on an importer’s website is not an option for the typical buyer.
Follow up…
Nokia USA has 36 phones offered
Nokia UK has 122 phones offered
Nokia Singapore has 76 phones offered
Nokia UAE has 121 phones offered
Nokia is suffering from bad decision on the OS front (Symbian) the fixation on using resistive touch screens and concentrating on features instead of UI on their handsets. They could have offered snappy touch enabled Android handsets for the lower market which is what the young crowd is aspiring. No instead they put even more money and committment on SYMBIAN which is an old generation OS without much hopes on today’s mobile OSes panorama.
Nokia is a trusty name. It means a decent mobile phone that will last a long time, easy enough to use. Many people who have a nokia are very loyal to the brand. But they also keep their phones untill they are broken or really outdated. And they did not pay a lot of money for it either.
The higher end phones can be stunning, the new n-series phones can compete with the big 3 smartphones. But they have a nokia label. That’s like taking a bmw and putting a volkswagen label on it. Sure it’s decent but it just isn’t the same.
Nokia tried hard to discover new markets with their music-oriented phones and the n-gage. Their N-series are decent smartphones. But they are still nokia’s.
@chrsd what are you talking about… “But they have a nokia label.” As far as I can remember it’s a privilege to own Nokia phones. They are def not cheap and the quality is great. Before iPhone, I had always used a Nokia and still love it.
I agree with a lot of people, they haven’t been able to keep up with the smartphone trend and thats what will hirt them. A decent browser and apps are keys to success. iPhone and Blackberrym are successful because of their apps.
Both the Blackberry and iPhone were successful before “apps” became the popular benchmark for smart phone success.
I’m sorry, but when did apps become the benchmark for a device’s popularity?
Regardless of platform there are approximately a couple of hundred – at best – applications which are of any use at all. Quantity is not quality here.
@Mark A
Whether you agree or not, the massive amount of developers behind the iPhone are having a huge contribution to the growth of the platform. To a lesser degree, Android based phones are following suit. Both platforms offer a substantially better operating system and overall user experience. Yes, Nokia is a household name in many parts of the world. However, unless they can pull a miracle out of their hats, they will continue to lose market share. They are losing market share in the smart phone market primarily, but it won’t be long before smart phones make up the majority of the market.
Nokia is Finnish, why the Asian theme image? A lot of people think Nokia is from Asia.
And on this topic, a lot of people spell the word a lot like this alot.
And… it’s not called a freaking podium, it’s called a lectern.
What. The hell. Is a lectern.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say it is a urinal that goes down to the floor.
Nokia screwed thing up when they stopped making phones EVERYONE wants to have. Their product line has been dull as hell for quite a while now, allowing other more innovative manufacturers to get ahead of them. I read some rumors about Nokia wanting to buy Palm. I suggest they do it because they need something competitive. Right now or they can forget about ever turning things around for themselves.
Nokia produce great hardware with mediocre software.
Apple kills them with iPhone’s OS and iTunes/App store.
Nokia’s lack of a decent app store and poor integration with the the rest of your work-flow puts them far behind.
The Ovi store is terrible and PC Suite is nowhere near iTunes.
I still use an e71 but it will probably be an iPhone or Android phone when I next upgrade unless Nokia get it together.
Massive loss of market share?
Yeah, a lack of innovation, resting on one’s laurels, assumption that the good time will never end, will do that.
Like Motorola did with that crap Rzr phone. Gawd that thing sucked.
Or not havign a presence in the market that’s responsible for most of the growth.
I wish people would do a bit of analysis before typing.
Was not developing a competitive product for the US market a strategic decision or a product development failure? It’s not like Nokia had been a stranger to the US market.
I think it interesting to see this. Nokia is far from dying. It is one of the most able businesses to transform itself when required. It used to be in the rubber business before mobile phones. It saw tha mobile opportunity and has transformed to capitalise. It can very easily do it again.
“Mobile is a young person’s game in Europe and Nokia is a young person’s phone.” I suggest that this is a rather subjective view. Nokia is a stable and trusted purchase that is bought by consumers and businesses alike. In the UK out of the top 100 devices nokia has some 40% share, iPhone has very low single digit share.
I suspect that a large issue that Nokia has experienced is due to the overnight fall in demand, coupled with the fact that many retailers are reluctant to hold stock. It would be interesting to see any carrier with an exclusive iPhone deal come out an say that that has been a positive financial experience.
To suggest Nokia is not evolving in terms of devices and OS? Take a look at Maemo and the new devices about to hit the street.
I live in the US and have a nokia n78. It’s a great phone for certain things: sound quality on calls are great, both for me and the person on the other end; camera is pretty sweet, too. However, for being one of the supposed “smart phones” from the Finnish giant, it disappoints on that front.
But nokias are super durable and long lasting. Yes, I’ll likely upgrade to a fancier, more feature-laden phone in the near future, but I’ll give my nokia to my ladyfriend who will no doubt use it for years, as her needs are less, uh, nerdy than mine.
What they really need to do is get rid of symbian and use a better OS for their higher-end models.
Nokia has one option here – buy Palm! They are too far behind to build the next big smartphone. Apple, Research in Motion and other handset manufacturers are too large to purchase. The logical step is buying Palm to take advantage of their success(?) with the Pre and Pixi in the United States.
The component shortage excuse is BS. Ask Flextronics, Freescale and other EMS providers about this component shortage, and they’ll tell you inventories are tighter but there’s still a surplus.
Oddly, I think that Palm has some great tech, but are not going to make it on their own. The more I think about the future of mobile, the more I believe that it is top to bottom web across all levels.
Maemo is very cool and I have been a fan of the possibilities of the platform for a while, but the execution requires easily a year or two to be useful at lower levels, whereas Palm has demonstrated the lower price point products. Palm should frankly build a tablet and fast.
All my mobile phones were from Nokia until the iPhone arrived. And I am not going back soon. Think that says enough, and I am quite certain there are a LOT of people like me.
So true!
I had a long history of Nokia phones until the iPhone crossed my way. There is no chance that I will ever return to a classic Nokia phone unless I’m forced to.
Jup, same for me.
Ditto, I was always a big fan of Nokia phones.
Before I bought my iPhone I was using a Symbian Nokia E50 which replaced a WinMo HTC Wizard, which replaced a Symbian Nokia 6620, which replaced a Symbian Nokia 3650 (yeah, the one with the rotary number pad).
ditto here
Totally, like, Nokia was so 2006
Yep, here’s another one. The iPhone 3GS is only the fourth mobile phone I’ve ever owned. The first three were Nokias, going back to the 5160 (AT&T PCS, back before GSM). Also, my fiancee’s first cellphone I got her was a Nokia; now she too has an iPhone.
My ex-wife (now in Finland, in fact) was still using her Nokia when she left the U.S., but she may have switched to a Siemens.
I guess I’m either old school or just not cool. I just went out of my way to buy an unlocked Nokia E51 and I couldn’t be happier. The legendary construction quality is present, and frankly I think it is a damn sight better looking than probably 80% of the phones available in the US these days.
For me, nobody does phones better than Nokia. If you want a hand held device that shakes you when you’re done peeing, then buy an iPhone. For me, I just wanted a phone that is a phone.
My new Nokia is technically a slimmed down smartphone, but as of right now I have zero need for a data package, but it is nice to know that all I have to do is drop a few more bucks a month and I’m in.
Till Android is a little more established and on more quality handsets, I just can’t justify going that direction, however, I am looking forward to that OS taking over the US market over the next two years. Somewhere between now and then if my Nokia ceases to function (doubtful) or if I find a pressing need, I will make the jump, but till then I will likely continue to be a very satisfied Nokia customer.
The Problem Nokia had this year also is that they lost a big stake in germany because they moved to romania. A lot of german employees got the option to move with the company to romania (and earn as little as one forth of their income before) or get fired and be unemployed.
Most people here don´t buy Nokia phones out of protest now, but soon it will be forgotten.
As far of the Image goes, Nokia fails to catch up with other smartphones, and after having my nokia n97 crash 5 times in 6 hours on my second day with it, I was happy to be able to sell it for 460 Euros.
Where did the quality and unlimited usability go? It´s just not fun anymore to have a nokia when you can have a samsung or htc which are either slimmer or give you more features.
Well, nokia killed everyone with their great interface and this is often the reason people chose nokia over siemens or motorola. just look at older phones and yes, nokia had by far the greatest interface.
sadly, with symbian, that stopped being true. A big problem I see is that the old phones were simple and nokia could do simple very well. Smartphones are complicated and it is a lot more work to make something really complicated and diverse into something simple. Here they still lagged. They are now in the featuritis mode (look our phone can do everything) and I am looking foward to see what kind of integrated systems they will bring out with all the wonderful startups they just bought.
I do have very high hopes and I do know that there are great people in the company. But as weird as it is, the iPhone just still beats them on the “will you take it out at the cash machine to do something?” question.
The problem is not the hardware – it is the software on Nokia phones.
Symbian look and feels tired and old
In a market where there is iPhones, Androids, Pre’s and appstores, they are losing out
The problem is they’re so big that they have to put out dozens of phones a year. It’s so hard to have a breakout hit that won’t be dragged down by the stinkers.
Not here in the US… If they actually had all the phones available here that they offer in Asia or EU, I am sure that they would sell more units.
The market for phones is the US is garbage. If you’re not rocking an iPhone, Blackberry or a couple other niche handsets, you’re only recourse is to track down a good unlocked phone not available in the states.
“Mobile is a young person’s game in Europe and Nokia is a young person’s phone.”
Says who? Where’s the data to support this? As with previous posters, I think this is the author’s personal opinion and I think it’s wrong. In fact, I think Nokia is now more the older person’s phone.
I notice there is not one mention of the Nokia-Siemens impact on Nokia’s bottom line, even though that is a huge contributor to the quarterly loss.
I expect better from TC.
Relax, this is an opinion blog….
That’s no excuse. The facts behind the opinion are either incorrect or misrepresented.
Stupid Article….
Nokia post loss becuase of Other better smart phones than Nokia available.Like RIM,APPLE & GOOGLE Blackeberry,iPhone & Android.And also palm pre.
Maybe you should read the number more carefully.. Do you seriously think Nokia Group made a this big loss because of “falling handset sales”? Actually Nokia Devices made a profit of 787€ million in this quarter. Their market share dropped in smartphones from last quarters 41%(16,9million devices) to 35%(16,4 million devices) but overall they did pretty well. Overall market share in phones stayed at 38%.
The reason for the 913€ million loss for Nokia Group was the massive writedowns they made for Nokia Siemens Networks and Navteq(1167€ million).
One interesting news was that the number users that Nokia Services have grew from 46 million to 61 million. That’s 15 million users more!
^ People really need to read this comment.
Agreed. John, if you are going to report on the performance of Nokia … at least look at the financials and see where the hits are. Nokia doesn’t just make phones.
The only time I see any of my friends with a Nokia is when they’ve lost their primary phone and dug out the old Nokia from the cupboard while they wait for a replacement.
Mobile is a young person’s game and Symbian is a old man’s platform.
Nokia build quality is second to none in my opinion, Samsung phones tend to break in less than 365 days, Apple phones have abysmal battery life.
However, I agree with others in that young people in Europe don’t tend to use Nokia phones like they used to.
Perhaps the next step for Nokia is to focus on solid, reliable phones that can be sold in the millions to the expanding number of users in India and Africa.
“Mobile is a young person’s game in Europe and Nokia is a young person’s phone. [...] you’re dealing with a consumer who is severely constrained in terms of disposable income.”
Where do you get these facts/assumptions from?
What’s up with the Newsweek video? The link was ok, but why so much emphasis on a totally different topic that is only marginally (at best) related to Nokia’s sales numbers?
And my perception is (maybe some research is required here), that most of the Nokia customers are currently corporate (at least in Germany).
I also think the article is not very well investigated but for different reasons. The first sentence “Nokia suffered an $834 million loss due to falling handset sales” is plain wrong. The loss was because of a write down in the value of Nokia Siemens Network. That resulted in an operating loss of more than 1 billion Euros for Nokia Siemens Network. That had very little to do with device quality or APPLE, RIM and others.
By the way, why are people only referring to American companies even those that are completely irrelevant in terms of sales nowadays such as Palm? What about all the others, such as Samsung and HTC?
“Nokia’s shares are down 6.02 percent today on news that Nokia suffered an $834 million loss due to falling handset sales.”
As many have commented, this is just totally and utterly wrong. The handset division did a pretty healthy _profit_ of over 700 million euros.
It is really, really sad that nowadays that nobody spends the time to do simple fact checking before jumping to conclusions. Jeez, it took probably more time to do the stupid photoshop.
Shame on you mobilecrunch!
The sad reality is that people are going for what is cool and what is cheap when it comes to cell phones today. Nokia Phones (the good ones) are just not cheap. Not everyone can spend ~$600 on a N900 or ~$400 on a N95 or E62. Regardless of their reliability, durability, and technology, the good Nokia phones can’t compete with a $199 iPhone 3GS or $99 iPhone 3G.
I personally can not wait for my N900 to arrive and for my iPhone to go into the drawer, but I am also one of the crazy people who is willing to spend $649 on a phone (sorry – internet tablet).
N900… which carrier? Or will it be only available as an unlocked option?
My main beef with Nokia (my current phone) is that all the good phones are not offered with the carrier’s two year hostage prices and I can only get them unlocked while traveling in Asia or on a importer’s website.
I bought my N900 unlocked (hence the $649 price tag). In the US, it will only work with T-Mobile as a carrier due to the 3G frequency. They are talking about releasing one that will work with AT&T but there is no timeline for it yet.
Give it about a month and I think we’ll see the N900 on T-Mobile with an unlimited plan for $50 a month. Just you watch.
Also, this article is stupid because it doesn’t address the real reasons for the loss – Nokia’s has problems, but this author takes a very shallow look at them.
they need to stop buying startups that have nothing to do with their core business. They also need to ditch ovi and use nokia as the only brand.
As someone who has seen how nokia works from the inside I can say the company people are passionate about mobile but waste so much resourse on crap and duplicate work.
Lastly they need to drop s60 and go with something else. The problem is the ui sucks and feel lose to me.
While Nokia products may be a thing of the past among the youth segment (under 25) in the US and Western Europe, it must be noted that within massive emerging markets… from Egypt, Iraq, to Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya and to Columbia and Brazil… Nokia is still the go-to mobile phone among all segments of the population and this will remain constant for the next 5-10 years.
Nokia has time on its hands to develop a competitive product that meets the demand of the ‘world’. I would not count out Nokia at this point.
Nokia could not be more of a #fail here in the U.S. Whenever their name comes up here in Silicon Valley, people look puzzled — as if you were talking about desktop computers and someone brought up the Commodore 64. When you mention Nokia, you seem out of date, clueless, backwards.
I understand it may not be that way in Europe, but here in the U.S., they have the worst reputation possible. Increasingly, you need app developers to embrace your platform the way people have done with iPhone. If app developers here have never seen a Nokia and no friggin idea what an “Ovi” is, then you are in big trouble. I don’t know how Nokia ever fixes this, their position is so bad. I agree with earlier comments that they should buy Palm and start over from scratch with that platform.
I don’t think you understand. It’s not Nokia that are backward, it’s the US phone market.
Have to agree with Mark. One of the reasons the iphone was such a smash hit in the US is that before the iphone the US was in the dark ages when it came to phones.
I remember someone demonstrating their mobile phone on a business trip to the states a few years back. The result was Oos and Aaas from the yanks. To us it was just a normal phone.
People who continue to support Nokia are not really supporting them. Nokia needs to wake up and show some spunk. They have the resources, what’s the excuse.
I used Nokia from the 6600 to N95 and today Nokia is largely irrelevant for someone who is looking for more from a phone than just call functionality, its just a phone with a mediocre os. There are too many superior alternatives to choose Nokia.
We needed someone like Apple to stir things up and show what’s possible. If left to Nokia we would have the same old Symbian with maybe more powerful camera and different colour handsets. That model of ‘innovation’ and gimmickry is fortunately over.
S60 hasn’t evolved for how long? What’s the excuse for this. Hell even palm came up with a fabulous of and interface out of no where in double quick time.
And for those who keep on the tired rants about build quality and features that you can’t even use properly because of the limiting screens, horrid interfaces and low ram, Nokia has been selling poor build quality phones with cheap plastic keys, just look at the N73 for idea of cheap build quality and sluggishness with low ram, even the N95. Unless they can quickly start innovating their time is up, they can continue to exist in the mid phone segments, and this has been happening steadily.
Folks need to wake up and tell Nokia what they need to hear instead of blindly supporting them because they hate Apple or Google, that just hastens their irrelevance.
Well said!
Raul,
I agree that the iPhone gave the market the kick up the pants it needed. That said you seem to have completely glossed over the fact that Nokia are in transition with the movement of Maemo to their high end handsets and the replacement of S60 with direct UI, not to mention Symbian’s development through ^2, ^3 and ^4.
If you’re going to criticize you should at least look at what their doing rather than complaining that they’re not transitioning when they clearly are.
What they’re doing is irrelevant until it’s done.
Raul has some valid points, all nokia phones after 3310 were crap except the lowest models (because you don’t expect anything from a phone costing that much, so no expectations to be ruined).
Karolis,
The N900 goes on sale at then end of the month. The first Symbian^2 Direct UI driven devices will be released in 2010.
Once again, please do some research before making a fool out of yourself.
The only thing Maemo has over iPhone is it’s an open OS. So why not Android?
I think Maemo is too late to make a difference. And Nokia’s 2 OS strategy will be confusing to consumers.
They should buy Palm and ditch the old junk.
N900 is a giant brick with a resistive screen and an old-school stylus. #FAIL
So, what time is it now?
I agree N97 is a failure as to user experience, but it was interesting to hear Nokis CEO tell it has been a success wih ovet 2.5 million sets sold and with best margins in Nokia line-up.
I know it is water under the bridge, but please bear in mind Nokia started thr mobile computer aka smart phone business in mid-1990s with their communicator series, of which E90 still remains highly useful tool for professionals on the move – I love iPhone but could not dream of writing a legal text with it to my clients but I can do it regularly with E90 even with my whole team as Qiickoffice and full physical qwerty eith side screen make track changes a smooth show.
I am writing this on iPhone and gosh how difficult it is on any language with longer words and thicker grammatical forms than brokrn English.
Somebody asked when s60 was last upgraded. In 2008 when 5th edition (for touchsceeens) came out.
Times are changing: For me the 2 most convincing observation why Nokia is on the decline:
The amount of people in the mobile communication industry that solely run around with iPhones, and then – even more – to see how in developing markets the local people don’t ask visitors if they had spare Nokia-phones, or Laptops. No, they ask for iPhones.
more here: http://bit.ly/364dAD
While Nokia’s loss was essentially due to a one-time writedown of their Siemens joint venture, it’s interesting that noone mention the continuing decline in the average sale price of a Nokia handset. It’s down to something like $68. No wonder their margins are declining.
As for Linux Maemo, what has taken them so long? Isn’t that the OS that they use on the N800 series? And, do they really think two smartphone OSes makes any sense? Who wants to buy an S60 based handset knowing that the highend handsets use Maemo? Those S60 based handsets will be orphaned sooner rather than later.
And, while some may explain Nokia’s lack of impact in the US, due to the backward nature of the US market, what explains the lack of success in Japan? Is that cellphone market, backward as well? In two of the three largest markets, Nokia has almost no presence. If they want to weaken their competitors from attacking them in their home markets, then they need to attack their competitors in their home markets, and they don’t. Who’s advising them, McKinsey?
You have not got the facts and figures right. It pains me to read this from mobilecrunch.
You guys are a bunch of dumb idiots living in a cave. Most of you who live in the US are clueless and are talking a load of gibberish.
The reason for Nokias lack of success in the US is because US carriers are assholes. e.g. Verizon and most phones in the US are pieces of ^&%*.
Untill the iPhone people in the US were stuck with BREW, WinMo and blackberries that couldnt display webpages or use multimedia. Atleast nokias could display webpages and run applications.Back then if you saw a nokia you would have thought it was good.
And for the record, nokia is open sourcing symbian. As for build quality, i have a Nokia which i drop atleast 5 times a day for 2 years and it doesnt have a single noticable scratch or problem. my brothers lg phone broke when he didnt even drop it much and a few of my friends iphones have cracked screens.
In my opinion, the reason most of you losers in the US whine about Nokia being shit is because you are living in a cave and need to wake up. I bet you also voted for george bush and think climate change is a myth