And the burning platform is still, uhm, burning. “Chief Executive Stephen Elop is placing hopes of a turnaround on a new range of smartphones called Lumia, which use largely untried Microsoft software. But Lumia sales have so far been slow, disappointing investors.” It’s a shame to see a once proud company in such a downward spiral, but alas, it’s the way of business. If you get complacent – as Nokia had gotten – you will fail.
As a rational and sane human being, I don’t understand a single thing Nokia has been doing. They must hate money and success.
Things make perfect sense if you look at it from the perspective of a Microsoft shareholder not a Nokia one, the current CEO of Nokia has (or used to have) a very sizable quantity of Microsoft stock.
Nokia is stuck with having to bet the farm as the OEM of a 3rd party commodity OS with little penetration in the market.
Frankly I have no idea why Nokia’s shareholders haven’t sued the shit out of Elop and friends for the clear conflict of interests, but then again holding Nokia stock currently does not really seem like a display of intelligence. Unless they are betting on Microsoft buying Nokia through a decent stock offer.
Edited 2012-06-15 01:01 UTC
Can we for one Nokia thread, stop this ignorant bs.
Stephen Elop was prohibited from dumping shares by law when he left Microsoft.
He was again, prohibited by law, from dumping his shares during the negotiations.
Besides this, the Nokia Board is the one who made the ultimate decision to adopt Windows Phone. Unless the entire Board is full with Microsoft plants, this theory holds no water.
I know its a lovely fairytale people like to tell, but its not true. Despite how much you’d love for it to be true, it simply is not.
If you’re going to try to pass your own personal opinion as validated fact, at least make sure you understand what you’re writing: e.g. If Nokia’s CEO was forbidden to dump his Microsoft stock during the negotiations, that means it is in his best interest for said stock to gain or maintain its value. Which is exactly what was implied from what I wrote.
Edited 2012-06-15 02:34 UTC
Except that his share divestment began a month after he joined Nokia, but had to cease during the time which he was undergoing Negotiations because of insider trading laws.
He disposed of 23,000 shares (half a million valuation) in August 2010.
In fact, the week after Barcelona he sold all his MSFT stock and bought Nokia stock. He is third largest shareholder among the Nokia leadership now.
10,000 workers, plenty of them with families to support, these news are terrible.
I used to love my nokia phones simple due to their simplicity, reliability and battery life
to little, to late… and now to MS I guess :/
shame really
Tom UK
How long it will be till Elop will get kicked?
Nokia is way too large for itself to support. They’re outsourcing manufacturing, cutting costs, and making strategic investments where it matters.
The Lumia 900 has sold very well in the United States, and still, even now, holds its own against the HTC One series.
The AT&T push here has been huge, and they say they’re very pleased with sales. Same goes for T-Mobile and some of the Canadian partners up north.
So in the US, undoubtedly its been a marked improvement over other Windows Phone OEMs.
The Lumia 800/710 abroad made great inroads I believe, as was evidenced by the fact that Nokia quickly surpassed every other Windows Phone OEM to become the top selling OEM.
Sure, they’re not Android numbers, but they don’t really need to be there for now. The Lumias use lower end parts, so manufacturing costs are less. Plus the 800 manufacturing was outsourced to Compal (Who also said they were pleased with demand, and actually increased in profit due to it). A steady stream of news from them shows that they’re increasing shipments, not decreasing. You don’t order more if you’re not selling well. I believe they also are manufacturing the 610.
Speaking of the 610. They’re just starting that roll out and I expect it to be huge. The price point is sweet and reviewers seem to love the device. Try running Android on a 800MHz 256MB device and have it perform anywhere near the Lumia.
In specific markets (Finland, US, UK, Russia, Germany to name a few) they’re making great inroads with strong sequential growth.
Windows Phone YoY growth has been pretty impressive. There are an estimated 13.5 million Windows Phone handsets in the wild.
Kantar recently reported that in major markets, Windows Phone holds a 3-4% marketshare.
So quite obviously, things aren’t as bad as they’re made out to be. Lumia sales may be “slow and disappointing” by Android standards, but anyone who expected the Lumia to move 20 million a quarter was out of their mind anyway. Things like these take time.
Nokia’s biggest pain point right now isn’t Lumia, its the collapse of Symbian sales. Lets say this again. The problem is not with the Lumia, it is the collapse of Symbian sales.
To combat this, there is the huge elephant in the room: Windows Phone 8. Expected to cover a wider range of hardware, enable lower price points, and allow Nokia to compete in the low-end Android dominated markets.
I think a low-end Windows Phone is a great proposition, and can’t see why a slow, confusing, unstable Android phone would do better.
Nokia just sold Vertu for $250 million (Interesting how Thom left that out) and bought the same Imaging technology which RIM just licensed in BB10. Expect to see that technology make its way into Lumias (As well as their Pureview 42 megapixel camera t ech) .
So where does Nokia stand? In dire straits financially. Its a time issue, and I don’t know if their restructuring will be enough. However, that’s not to say that they’re going to go into bankruptcy. They’re too crucial to Windows Phone for Microsoft to ever let that happen. If the time came, they’d get a cash infusion from Microsoft (or outright be bought out) and they’d be okay until their transition was over.
Nokia is a freaking cheap stock (It’s like 2 bucks a share) and the potential upside is amazing if what trends, momentum, and analysts say are true.
Edited 2012-06-14 21:52 UTC
You have summarized it very well. I could not have done better.
They lost a good opportunity on Maemo and MeeGo (N900). And they could no longer develop Symbian to be competitive. I do not think they had much choice but push WP7 at that time.
And… I have a WP7 phone (HTC not Nokia), and I like it a lot.
Edited 2012-06-14 22:06 UTC
They didn’t loose the opportunity. They killed it on purpose (for no reason, besides pleasing MS).
But Windows Phone is not crucial for Nokia, despite all the PR which placates it otherwise. I.e. while MS benefits from pushing WP on Nokia, Nokia only suffers from that partnership. IMO in the long run, it will either damage Nokia beyond repair, or will cause them to dump the MS deal if they’ll get sober in time.
Edited 2012-06-14 22:27 UTC
This is absolute bullshit. Make Nokia an Android OEM and they die tomorrow. They definitely don’t have the cash on hand to do something like that.
Their stock would plunge through the floor, there’d be open revolt if they pivoted yet again to Android. A market already saturated by OEMs. Anyone who’s not Samsung or HTC really doesn’t do well on Android.
Ask Sony, Acer, Asus, LG, etc.
You think Nokia would fare better? Its an entrenched market.
On Windows Phone, Nokia has eaten their lunches because they took advantage of the fact that OEMs put in half efforts into the platform.
If Samsung, HTC, LG, and the other Windows Phone OEMs put in as much effort as Nokia, and each sold as much as Nokia does with the Lumia, Windows Phone marketshare would look much closer to 10% than it does now.
Too much has been sunk into marketing for the Lumia series, and Lumia again, for the third time, is not their problem.
Microsoft would (hypothetically) save them not because Lumia is doing bad, but because Symbian is, and if Symbian goes, so does Nokia and the whole ship.
There is really no long run, unless they do major restructuring. They have months, not years before they burn through their reserves. Let’s be realistic.
They need to:
– Restructure, downsize, become a leaner company
– Double down on Windows Phone investments
– Push Windows Phone into the low end Smartphone range (Totally, completely achievable. Its not an IF, its a WHEN proposition).
I expect one of two things:
A loan from MSFT or an outright buyout from MSFT. Loan being more likely.
This will give them the time they need to complete their transition, without the Symbian deadweight cannibalizing their finances.
I’m not sure where you saw Android mentioned anywhere in my post. Nokia knows how develop normal mobile Linux (which were Maemo, and Meego), and has no need in Android to produce a good quality OS. One can speculate, is it too late already to do it for them now, but WP spells their doom, it was clear from the ill fated Elop’s burning platform memo. Anyway, time will tell.
Edited 2012-06-14 22:55 UTC
Fair enough, let’s assume they go back to MeeGo or Maemo (Which since the N9 hasnt received any serious R&D), and uses a comparatively weak set of developer tools.
They’re only about 100,000 apps behind where they are now, with a phone who’s brand has next to zero recognition (Ask someone about the N9, then ask them about Lumia — stateside the Lumia buzz is huge.)
You’d have them abandon the US market? You know that the N9 has no LTE, right? That’s a non starter for almost every carrier nowadays save for T-Mobile.
So they’d switch a phone which is 100,000 apps behind Windows Phone, has no name buzz, has had no marketing thrown behind it, and will not work in North America. For an OS which hasn’t been seriously worked on in close to a year and has little to no manufacturing footprint aroudn the world?
And you talk about Nokia making bad decisions? This would be a monumental blunder if they did what you’re suggesting. Lumia is, and always was their best bet. Again, for the fourth time, the problem is NOT with the Lumia line.
Let’s assume that they went with MeeGo instead of Windows Phone, what exactly is it that would put them on firmer footing than they are now? I’m really curious, since this seems rather ridiculous to me.
Sounds like Elop’s PR to me. But who are to be blamed that Nokia didn’t work on Meego for a year, didn’t produce new Linux handsets after N9, and didn’t market them? Nokia is to blame (with MS shadow somewhere on the back). Now they either admit their mistake, and try to recover (no guarantees that it’ll work), or they’ll die as a company from the MS partnership. Either way it’s not clear if they can survive IMO, but becoming MS subsidiary is probably worse.
Edited 2012-06-14 23:20 UTC
You didn’t answer my question in the end.
Flexible system, which can share effort with other manufacturers, and not controlled by MS and their idiotic restrictions.
Meego however wasn’t organized too well management wise (too much control from Nokia). They had to structure it better to attract participation from other hardware vendors.
I really hope something like this will eventually emerge, whether with Nokia or not – I don’t really care about them anymore. May be Tizen or something the like. I’d prefer for them to use Mer, since Tizen seems to be too much under Samsung’s control (same problem as before).
Edited 2012-06-14 23:12 UTC
I mean it sounds great, but how well has something like this worked in practice? I think there’d be too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak, but who knows. It could’ve worked. I think it would’ve been riskier though for Nokia.
Plus there’d need to be tools up to snuff, a decent platform to build off of, and some solid commitment from those involved. I just can’t see say Samsung investing heavily in something like this vs. Android.
For MeeGo, Intel didn’t even have a foot in the door with mobile. Fast forward to today, and they JUST launched a mobile phone chip running Android and Win8 tabs are still months off. So it was always essentially a Nokia only game.
I’m mixed on this, on one hand, there always needs to be hard decisions made. Someone needs to put their foot down and say what the project stands for.
For example, on Windows Phone, the user experience and fluidity was not to be impacted by any running app, so the platfom was built around that. You can’t have both that, and an open system, they’re mutually exclusive.
Also, going by what I’ve seen from most OEMs on Android, I wouldn’t trust a single one to write any kind of software. I don’t want TouchWiz OS.
I do too, it’d be interesting to watch. If anything, some good should come of it even if it doesnt ever hit market.
With proper efforts separation. Mer proposed a design with the OS core, which is solid, and collaborated by participants as a common ground, and hardware adaptations + UI/UX levels on top. Vendors can do whatever they want with the adaptations and UX layers to differentiate their distros, and collaborate on improving the core OS, which will benefit everyone.
Core is meritocratically governed, with community participation. Meego was not designed quite that way, and unfortunately Tizen isn’t either. One sided control eventually proved to be negative for system survival in Meego’s case.
> Ask someone about the N9, then ask them about Lumia
Sure, the N9 was not even for sold in most of the lucrative markets and there was no marketing at all.
And yet while more people know what a Lumia is and lesser what a N9 is the N9 sold better then the Lumia.
> the Lumia buzz is huge
Yes. Lots of dollar went into marketing. Articles are written, positive reviews are payed for and Buzz is produced.
And yet Lumia sells so bad that it has a marketshare of under 2%!
> You’d have them abandon the US market? You know that
> the N9 has no LTE, right? That’s a non starter for
> almost every carrier nowadays save for T-Mobile.
The N9 was never supposed to be sold in the US. The US was never a profitable market for Nokia. In fact the US is very much irrelevant compared to markets like Asia.
Also Lumia is not successful in the US either. Please look at official sales-numbers rather then the Amazon top-list BS.
Remember that the N9 was the very first device. More devices where already in the pipeline. Do not believe any statement Elop gave. It’s the PureView-lie applied to N9.
> So they’d switch a phone which is 100,000
> apps behind Windows Phone
You are calculating wrong. To that number of applications you need to add the number of Symbian applications thanks to Qt.
That the porting never happened is caused by Elop killing both platforms. From that moment Symbian crashed down and went from the market-leading mobile OS (double as much sells as it’s closed competitor) to a dying, outsourced, unsupported and outdated niche-OS. Samsung Bada took over and is quit successful on that.
> And you talk about Nokia making bad decisions?
Well, Nokia lost 70% of it’s value in just a year. All forecasts where assuming lesser then 5% and they did fall 70%! All that after the burning Nokia memo. This was the biggest management mistake in history and yes, it was a bad decision. It kills Nokia.
> Lumia is, and always was their best bet.
If your target are <2% marketshare then yes. With everything else you could not have reached that target but would always be >2% (just like the case with Samsung Bada and Symbian).
> Again, for the fourth time, the problem is NOT
> with the Lumia line.
True. The problem is that Nokia depends on the success of the Lumia line.
> Let’s assume that they went with MeeGo instead of
> Windows Phone, what exactly is it that would put
> them on firmer footing than they are now?
More sells that are more lucrative per sold unit?
Symbian would still selling well enough to make profit rather then huge loses?
Both would form one eco-systems with Qt as bridge between them making each other even stronger?
Nokia would still have full control over it’s stack and not highly dependent on Microsoft cash-fusions and good-will to survive?
If Microsoft does not like to waste resources to make Lumia run with Win8 then Nokia can do nothing about that. Result is Lumia will not run Win8 and that hurts Lumia-salles. This kind of dependency is fatal.
Edited 2012-06-15 08:30 UTC
It’s even worse than that. HTC cannot be said to be doing well — merely “okay.” Only Samsung is doing well from Android.
All of those companies are heavy restructuring due to smartphone race induced by IPhone effect and almost instant death of premium feature phone category. Nokia were doing best of them before Elop memo with outlook to migrate its Symbian customers to its modern os that’s better than both Android (leaner, better dev kit, more stable, more style) and WP (much more functionality, true multitasking). Now they are at downward spiral to death, while others have stabilised on breackeven.
Samsung is squeezing them all because their kick ass manufacturing capabilities and enjoying economies of scale from both Apple and their own devices. Nobody can undercut them on price on the high end. The same would happen on any platform, and if WP is picked up would definitely happen there as well.
Edited 2012-06-15 05:49 UTC
Samsung had and has WP7 phones and it did not happen there. The used OS is essential for the success too and WP7 just doesn’t sell. Neither Samsung nor Nokia can change that. Other tried, failed and switched away from WP7.
Edited 2012-06-15 16:49 UTC
And Huawei, and ZTE (what, you haven’t heard of them? Oh, ZTE is only the 4th largest mobile maker, or maybe already 3rd)
Just like with the PC, old manufacturers fading away, new taking over – nothing to see here, move along.
This is not about the MS deal. The failures of Symbian, Maemo, and Meego happened much before.
Symbian have been dead in smartphone market for several years now. I had their T-Mobile pushed device (Nokia Nuron) temporarily, and it was an almost total disaster. It worked, but the interface was even worse than Windows Mobile 6. (Not even mentioning iOS, or Android).
They mismanaged, and abandoned Maemo very badly. I was an unfortunate owner of a Nokia N800. Initially, I was really excited to have a portable Linux device that could do Sykpe on the go. However they abandoned the device with the release of N810 (and that with N900). They did not even fully support the on board camera, or the opengl chip.
And, MeeGo (which would have fixed my issues) was stillborn. There was no real release, except for N900. And then I sold my N800 – seeing there is no future.
I was with them when they failed. They knew little about Linux based device support less than even the Sharp Zaurus. That is how I know they had no options, but to depend on an external OS supplier (Symbian was doing good before Nokia purchase as well).
Edited 2012-06-15 13:00 UTC
I think they should’ve redoubled on their Symbian support (instead of ringing its Death Knell years before they can replace it). If Symbian sales would’ve held strong, Nokia would actually be doing great right now. That was a severe miscalculation on their part.
I’m on the fence about the MeeGo stuff, on one hand, the project was really going nowhere (Evidenced by N9 not even using the publicly available MeeGo stuff, but Nokia’s own incarnation), on the other hand it did create a lot of ill will. This I think was a harder decision.
They’ve done well for Windows Phone. I hope with WP8 (being announced in six days) that they’ll launch some low cost phones to replace Symbian.
Of course it couldn’t go anywhere, because Nokia sabotaged it right when it was in critical development stage, and Intel decided to dump it shortly afterwards. So the project itself can’t be really blamed. But brainless mismanagement of it coming from Nokia – can.
Edited 2012-06-14 22:53 UTC
So two independent companies dump an OS because it was great, right?
Wrong. It had no future, and they saw that. It was going nowhere. Nokia didn’t even deem it fit to go on their N9 device.
It was always vaporware. Its time to move on man, its been like a year, who the fuck cares about MeeGo.
Meego is of course a vaporware. Nobody cares about Meego
But N9 uses Maemo, and I assure you many of us do care a lot about Maemo.
If you are interested to know the reason, here’s one. First, read http://stackoverflow.com/a/7857052 about how to debug an iOS application on an actual device over wifi. It sucks. On the other hand, Qt Creator does that seamlessly with plain old SSH into N900 / N9. No string attached. No magic involved.
Great or not great, it depended on Nokia much more than on Intel. Nokia was bribed by MS, and pulled the plug. End of story. As I said before – it’s always risky, when such projects are essentially controlled by one entity, who with that can’t be trusted not to betray the project.
Edited 2012-06-15 01:35 UTC
Can you be bribed to commit sucuside?
Hoho.. Yes, of course: Suicide bomber.
…. ANNNNNND some brainless company stakeholder to kill their company
It’s a bit more complex than that, since Nokia is not a monolith. Some probably benefited from MS money, others not (as you see many simply lost jobs). Those who benefited may be interested in their personal gain, rather than in success of Nokia as a whole. Who knows. Many within Nokia warned that MS deal will be practically lethal for the company. But those who were making the decision apparently didn’t care.
> Evidenced by N9 not even using the publicly
> available MeeGo stuff, but Nokia’s own incarnation
Meego was a *specification* and Meego Harmattan followed that specification.
I agree, the very much avoidable Symbian collapse is a huge problem, but where you see hope for the Lumia I see complete failure by any standards you care to name – profitability, average sales price, market share, desirability, brand, you name it.
The problem is that in order to compete in the markets you mention (the developed world – highly saturated markets) you need a much better phone than the Lumia series can provide (you’re going against the iPhone), OR you need high sales volume on a profitable handset (current Lumias are sold at cost or at loss, and no, it’s not relevant if you report a 500% growth if your baseline share was 0.1%).
If you try to compete in those markets with a product that barely cuts it as a mid-range phone and neglect markets with much, much higher growth potential like India or China where you were enjoying a dominant market position… then you’re simply trying to commit suicide…
A lot of it can be addressed with time. I think we’ll just have to disagree on the Lumia success, I see clear momentum. Maybe not run way success, but very clear momentum.
Sequential growth is also high, so its indicative of an ongoing trend of growth.
I don’t believe Lumias are sold at a loss, I’ve never heard of them being sold at a loss.
WP8 will enable high resolutions, differing SoC chipsets, better cameras, essentially a wider range of hardware. I think on the high end, Nokia will have no problem beating others. Their Camera tech is particularly impressive.
For the low end, it remains to be seen if WP8 can address that, though I sincerely hope it can.
Yes, but Nokia is out of time. They’re bleeding income, profits, capital, market share, and worst of all talent. A high risk gamble like switching to WP and abandoning its traditional markets should have paid out within four quarters. It didn’t (spectacularly so – how the people responsible aren’t yet being tarred and feathered doesn’t cease to amaze me), and I don’t see how Nokia could possibly recover from the hole it dug for itself. The most likely future is probably someone managing to secure the financing required to buy it and carve it up for the manufacturing capability and the patent portofolio (the best people will long since have left.)
I don’t think it’s with the illumination of hindsight when I say that the fallout from Elop’s idiotic timing should have been obvious… He neglected rule #12 on the most excellent (and entertaining) Evil Overlord List ( can be enjoyed at http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html ).
I think the Lumia line was targeting their high end, which wasn’t doing too hot in the first place. The transition is still in full swing. I think if after this major Windows Phone release (With they’ve had a great part in, if the rumors are to be believed) they don’t move anything meaningful, then its time to worry about their investment.
However, I think shareholders and the board can see signs of encouragement. The Lumia sales, while again, not up to par with Android or iOS, have not been devastating. Its not like they sold 100,000 ever. They’ve sold millions.
Symbian on the high end never did this great.
I think what one person calls “talent” another can call “middle management cruft”, and I think Nokia could stand still, from even more downsizing. Times change, and they need to be more nimble than they are.
I don’t doubt they’ll be able to secure the funding to sustain themselves through their transition (From Microsoft to me looks likely, they’re not about to let Nokia go under), and I think there’s still tremendous value in the company.
They’re not out of cards to play. Yet.
> I think the Lumia line was targeting their high end, which wasn’t doing too hot in the first place.
I don’t think so, L800 was an upper midrange at best with L710 being lower midrange.
L800 apparently flopped with L710 having some mild uptake.
Then Nokia itself has pushed MS hard to support lowend with L610.
L900 is perceived as a flagship but due to WP restrictions falls short to contemporaries from Apple and Samsung. The price they are asking for L900 (like free after the bug) cerainly doesn’t position is as a highend device.
>> The Lumia sales, while again, not up to par with Android or iOS, have not been devastating.
It’s not Android that you should confront Lumia sales with but Symbian, esp. in countries that Nokia used to dominate just few months ago. And that is devastating.
>> Symbian on the high end never did this great.
Agree, nevertheless N8 has enjoyed good prices and improved Nokia ASP before symbian was killed.
N9 in the other hand had won number of design awards and was universally appreciated due to both SW and HW.
>> I think what one person calls “talent” another can call “middle management cruft”, and I think Nokia could stand still, from even more downsizing.
Nokia is firing both people that defined its software identity and long time sales force that knows the cell phone business (and were impartial in creating it in the first place) more than middle level managers from MS Elop replaces them with will ever do.
>> I don’t doubt they’ll be able to secure the funding to sustain themselves through their transition (From Microsoft to me looks likely, they’re not about to let Nokia go under)
The rumors state that the financing will the financing will not come free but in exchange for essential patents that Nokia have developed in last 15 years and MS will use to destroy Android. Getting them on the cheap seems to be a major theme behind the whole story.
Edited 2012-06-15 06:28 UTC
It was still priced like a high end phone, it still looked and felt like a high end phone. Just, the margins were better because they used cheaper parts thanks to how well Windows Phone is optimized.
I haven’t seen specific model break downs of Lumia sales, but from what can be seen the 800 and 710 did increase Windows Phone market share in key markets in Europe.
I think being flag ship and high end is less about raw specs and more about how you position yourself in the markets.
The 900 proved this.
The “free” was only for specific customers during a limited window of time. Besides that, carrier subsidies are pretty high in the US. Its not like Nokia is getting $99 or even more ridiculous, $0 per phone.
I agree here, and I’ve said before I think Elop’s move on Symbian was premature. They could’ve made an easier transition.
One area I’m optimistic about is where they’re going with Series 40. The Asha Touch line is _really_ attractive, and is pushing itself upwards into Symbian territory.
If they can push up with S40, and down with WP8, then they’ll fix their Symbian problem sooner rather than later.
The Lumia has won several awards, and has also sold well. The N9 was nice, but the software was not all there. It would frequently slow down, the app ecosystem was subpar, and the tools were lacking.
It was nice, and Nokia has said they’re influencing Windows Phone based off of what they learned with the N9.
Is there any evidence he’s replacing them with “middle level managers from MS”?
The 10,000 laid off were likely from Meltelmi and Qt groups, which were reportedly failing to meet performance and feature deadlines.
I don’t blame them, Nokia can’t have this double sighted vision. It needs to either go all-in on Windows phone, or not. It can’t play both sides of the coin.
As such, a lot of the developers working on phased out technologies become dead weight.
Nokia has no time, or money for these science projects which never work. Qt was a horrendous investment by Nokia. I’m almost certain they regret it.
If the patents Nokia has are that valuable, I don’t doubt Nokia will start using them itself to raise revenue. After all, Android is a billion dollar business for Microsoft.
> Symbian on the high end never did this great.
You seem to get the numbers once more wrong. Symbian *still* has way more market-share then WP7 every had and hence there are way more Symbian-devices sold then WP7.
See e.g. http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1924314
Symbian: 32.3% market-share
Windows (CE and WP7 combined): 3.4% market-share
And just to make it clear: The N8 is as much high-end as someone can have and it sold way better then all lumia together.
Edited 2012-06-15 17:12 UTC
You do understand that Nokia cannot continue as a company its size and cost structure, if the Lumina is not a run away success very soon. You will see more announcements like this of layoffs and closings of offices.
I have faith that Nokia will push into Symbian territory with attractive Lumia devices.
{removed}
Edited 2012-06-15 01:14 UTC
And I have faith that more layoff will happen again, and Nokia (as in Nokia) will cease to exist (bought out by other company).
That’s because they aren’t. There was a breakdown in the WSJ last week about the profit margin on the Lumia 900 versus the iPhone 4S, complete with a price breakdown of every component of the phone. I don’t remember the exact figures, but Nokia is profiting in close to $300 on each Lumia sold; Apple pulls in over $400.
The Nokia has been *very* successful in the US at planting the seeds for a Lumia brand. It’s not there yet; less than half the market is even accessible right now due to Lumia’s GSM-only nature. But Lumia is certainly doing more stateside than dead-end Symbian was doing the past few years.
You mean this infographic: http://www.phonearena.com/news/WSJ-infographic-of-the-Lumia-900-and…
Nokia is earning $241 per Lumia 900, versus Apple^aEURTMs $459 per iPhone 4S. For Apple, that’s a gross margin of nearly 70%.
Of course, this is due largely to the substantially higher carrier subsidy that Apple gets. Apple has a market-dominant position, and is not afraid to throw its weight around. Most of its profits come directly from the carrier’s pocket.
Looks like you love MS and Nokia that much, sir, to the point that… forget it.
Well, yes, a lot of it can be ADDRESSED with time. Like don’t update our Lumia line (f*ck them. let them stick with our dated OS, muahaha), do not give upgrade to the phone below 256MB of memory. Slash the feature for cheaper phone, etc..etc..
If I’m in the brink of death, I’m sure I wont do that. I’d do the opposite to capture back my market share. But well, it’s just me
.
What are you even saying? English.
He says that all the Lumia devices are already outdated cause they cannot and will not be upgraded to Windows phone 8.
He also says that Windows Phone 7 and 8 have rather high minimum hardware requirements. They will never be able to run on low-end, cheaper hardware like you need to keep Nokia’s most successful markets – the emerging markets in africa, asia, etc. It looks they cannot and are losing against Samsung Bada cause since the WP7-strategy there is no investment in the dumbphones done any longer. All of Nokia focuses on WP7 and they are losing there core markets.
He also says, and there I agree, that if I am losing massive ground in my core markets – those that bring in the money – then I do not abort them. But Nokia did and does. They think they will catch up some day with Windows Phone’s that are able to run on low-end hardware.
Nice double talk. Portraying their weaknesses as strengths. None of that is true, but that’s what a Nokia spokesperson woudl have to say.
Nice useless comment, thoroughly enjoyed it, right inline with my expectations.
What, you’re saying you’re not a paid Nokia and/or Microsoft PR person?
It may be slow compared to WP7, it’s no less confusing and definitely not unstable.
It may be that only Nokia can produce a low end device, because everyone else can’t do that.
Now, when the first WP8 devices start to roll out, we will see a new generation of low end devices. Sony Xperia U is already on the heels of 610. And Xperia lowend is far below what any WP7 can provide(not to mention the low end of Samsung, low-end of ZTE and the new mid-range Intel devices).
If the market gets frozen for the next 9 months(I seriously do not expect WP8 to be out earlier), then I would agree that WP8 has great chances. However a lot will happen in those 9 months. iPhone refresh is coming in fall. If Apple pushed iPhone4 to $350 and keeps iPhone3Gs it’s game over for WP and a lot of Android base. New baseline Android will be released – the next Nexus. Samsung’s, HTC’s and Sony’s budget lines will be refreshed.
Regardless of how I feel about Microsoft, WP7 is having issues capturing the market and WP8 looks to be picking up from WP7 in an even more contested market.
Windows Phone will be out by October, like it usually is.
My doubt is in devices, not just software. It takes a month to two months to ship generic Windows laptops with a new version of Windows, embedded is slower on that front.
Devices came out around the same time last year, no reason to believe any differently this time.
This is nothing but fearmongering.
Edit:
Windows Phone 7.5 rolled out on September 27th and the HTC Titan (Generation 2 device) went on sale October 7th.
Ten days.
Edited 2012-06-15 01:27 UTC
The reason is the move to a new kernel. But, hey, time will tell.
Symbian was selling very well in India after the burning memo. Many buy WP in India because its Nokia not because of MS.
But Android is decimating Nokia’s higher and lower end markets.
Nokia Android would have a been a runaway success in India.
I am using ICS on a 600mhz 300MB mobile.From your comments in this site i see that you are a Microsoft fanboy. Have you ever used a Android mobile?
Ahahah, so much spin!
Who cares about the USA, a saturated market? And why compare it to the One series specifically (the one which suffered delays thanks to an Apple ban)? Cherry-picking much?
Nokia has its own factories, but they are throwing money at Compal because their own factories can’t produce the Lumias? Marvellous!
Yeah, but all the smartphone market is growing at an astonishing rate. The rising tide lifts all boats. The real question is: is WP growing as fast or faster than competitors?
Well, I guess that answers it.
They don’t have time. Market saturation is coming fast (as close as next year, 2014 if it goes more asymptotic), and old users are locked in the ecosystem they choose by the apps they bought.
Woah. “If” ALL WP partners were putting all their efforts together, they WOULD get a meager 10%? THAT’s a value proposition! Can’t see why they didn’t do that. Beats me.
The only people who complain about market saturation are those who can’t think of new business models. Times change, and companies will too.
However, all of that is an aside, and not part of the point. The point is Nokia reestablished itself in the USA after a near zero presence.
Whether it signs up new people, or converts existing Androids and iOS users is irrelevant.
The comparison I was making was an observation made based off of preorders, which don’t much care for an import ban that lasted like a week, and which predated said import ban.
I’m not really cherry picking, on sites like Amazon the Lumia topped the charts for quite some time.
It was a timing and logistics thing mainly, the 900 is produced in house by Nokia.
Not that there’s anything wrong with outsourcing manufacturing. I wish they’d do more of it, or do you think less of Apple for outsourcing their manufacturing? Very few OEMs live a double life as an ODM.
Obviously it is, thanks to Nokia, since it has grown in key markets (Gone from 1-2% to 3-4%) which means it is outpacing smart phone market growth (otherwise itd be flat if it was keeping up, or negative if it was being outpaced)
A marked improvement from the sometimes sub 1% representation of Windows Phone. My point with these figures is to show that the Lumia (in its limited time of availability, in its gradual roll out) has made inroads, moreso than other OEMs.
Under the current business model. Like I said before, things change. Microsoft is working on allowing people to migrate their apps from say, Android to Windows Phone.
You can check it out here: http://www.unwiredview.com/2012/05/17/what-app-problem-microsoft-is…
Microsoft has an app store with 100,000 apps. The growth of the store has been explosive. Apps wont be a limiting factor.
“By now”, not 10% ever. Its a great start. I’m sure HTC (who’s not looking too good lately either) would love to have a couple million more Windows Phones sold under its belt.
Competition is less stiff than on the Android side, dealing with Samsung and all.
You mean the HTC who has been a Windows Mobile maker from the beginning, who got bullied into paying the “Microsoft Tax” for any Android device sold and who is now shut down from building W8 tablet?
HTC rather wants to say “f–k you, bastard”.
Edited 2012-06-15 09:40 UTC
PUHLEEZE! As if HTC would bother to pump more money into a business to help out a “partner” get traction on its struggling platform without any clear signs from the market of return of that investment when said partner leeches whatever it can from their other somewhat successful business with bullshit patent racketeering and recently has told them loud and clear that it doesn’t want to help them to generate some extra income with its upcoming tablet business, for $DEITY’s sake!
If I were in a decision taking position at HTC, I’d be begging the board to discuss ways to split ways with Microsoft, not to increase an already abusive relationship with them.
Edited 2012-06-15 16:53 UTC
Finally a sensible answer. Well, I come from a country with a micro market if you will. One million potential buyers is not a lot. But it is a great place to follow the trends. Much more than in some huge market such as Germany.
This is what is happening here. Three years ago there was nothing but Nokia. If you would ask any “opinion maker” Nokia was a way to go. Since forever. Their brand was so strong operators were fighting who will have the latest and the greatest Nokia. They were the king and the queen.
Than came Samsung (not Apple but Samsung) with Galaxy S. Their approach was well planned and timed. They were able to overshadow Apple in a month. After Samsung other Android manufacturers followed, HTC being quite aggressive, Sony …
And Nokia? Its completely gone. They tried with N9 which was overpriced compared to what Samsung and others were offering. They are putting a lot of effort into Lumias now. You can see the commercials on stairs, buses, everywhere. Yet, everybody is talking about Galaxy S3. If you ask an “opinion maker” today – folks who read sites like OSAlert – they would not even mention Nokia. It’s that bad.
But if you were to merge Nokia hardware with Andorid software… I bet it could still be a winner in this market and in Europe in general. The window of opportunity is small though as Nokia is fading from day to day while Samsung and HTC are going supernova.
Btw, the other day a talked with a Thai gentlemen. Hhe was looking for a phone for his daughter back home. What did she order – HTC One or galaxy S2 or S3.
Edited 2012-06-15 09:25 UTC
Dude, the US is a niche and WP is a niche. So your argument is that Nokia is doing well on the super niche market that is WP in the US.
Man, Nokia used to be number 1, so far above number 2 that it wasn’t even funny. WP is a total failure. They have killed Symbian and Maemo for it.
Nokia’s decisions since Elop became CEO should be used as an example of how NOT to run a business for all business students.
Such a waste… I can’t even imagine how successful the N9 would have been if it was running vanilla Android or even a still supported maemo version.
Layoffs and buying stuff…
http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/14/nokia-to-acquire-scalado-build-a…
and also meltemi is dead…
http://allthingsd.com/20120614/nokia-to-end-meltemi-effort-for-low-…
… and microsoft will make announcment monday
Edited 2012-06-14 22:16 UTC
Sounds like MS wasn’t pleased with killing Meego, and decided that Meltemi should go as well. Familiar pattern.
I often wonder if the CEOs of companies like Nokia and RIm ever take a break from admiring their own reflections and lining their bonus packages to actually consider their customers, and shareholders for that matter. Why do they plunder shareholder value by alienating customers? Two mighty companies eviscerated by the hubris of their so-called leaders.
How would it be sold to consumers? It’s like Android but without the games and fewer media choices?
I don’t think there was an easy move to make. Like Blackberry they took too long to compete with the iPhone. That is the real issue, not Elop.
Every move is a gamble for them. At least they are putting chips on the table instead of sitting scared like Blackberry
Maemo6 was not much poised to take over Android customers (through it had Android compatibility developed) as much as providing a migration path for both past Symbian users who by the time of original N9 announcement constituted a third of smartphone market share (both in consumer and enterprise space) and developers (having source compat. trough QT). Seeing death warrant on the platform most of them used the occasion to buy into Android which currently has closest Symbian feature parity.
The situation reminds me about Stephen Elop’s comment over one year ago, “Nokia, our platform is burning”. Somehow I feel, that it’s Nokia’s strategy which is burning now… It’s just a pity, that many skilled hard-working people have to lose their jobs because of this all.
Edited 2012-06-15 05:48 UTC
I suppose they will fire the engineers. This is insane. They executed their job very well. The management failed. The strategy is a total failure despite being very well executed by the engineers. Elop’s bonus probably equals the salary of those 10000 engineers. They should fire the management but as usual, the ones who actually perform are the one who pay and the ones who fail are the one who don’t take any risk.
Goodbye Nokia