Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there’s not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can’t even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
In the first quarter of 2013, Nokia sold a total of 6.1 million smart devices. Of those, 0.5 million were Symbian devices (fist-bump), leaving a total of 5.6 million Lumias. While that’s considerably more than the 2 million Lumias Nokia sold in the same quarter in 2012, Nokia still saw a 49% drop in total smartphone sales compared the year-ago quarter, because Symbian sales dropped considerably. Nokia sold 11.9 smartphones in Q1 2012, but only 6.1 million in Q1 2013.
Symbian sales dropped from around 10 million to 0.5 million in a year, while Lumia sales only grew from 2 million to 5.6 million in the same timeframe. Nokia is bleeding market share in smartphones, and there’s no end in sight. It’s even worse in the US – Nokia sold 700,000 devices in North America in Q1 2012, but only 400,000 in Q1 2013. Since virtually all of those sales are Lumias (Symbian never played much of a role in North America), we can conclude that Windows Phone 8 is, so far, a total dud in the US.
If we dive into the fine print, there’s more bad news for Nokia, Microsoft. Nokia reveals that only 66 percent of its Lumia sales are Windows Phone 8 devices, meaning Nokia only sold about 3.7 million Windows Phone 8 Lumias. Since I doubt HTC sold more than 0.5-1 million WP8 devices, we’re looking at 4.7 million Windows Phone 8 devices sold last quarter, tops – in addition to several million Windows Phone 7 devices. In other words, Nokia is propping up its sales with outdated, non-upgradeable devices – terrible news for Windows Phone developers.
People, Nokia isn’t doing well. As much as I like Windows Phone, Nokia made the wrong choice by going into bed with Microsoft; the below chart by Asymco illustrates this perfectly. The gap is the moment Nokia announced the switch to Windows Phone. No explanation necessary.
Feature phones aren’t doing well, either. Year over year, sales of Nokia’s feature phones dropped 21% from 70.8 million to 55.8 million. “On a year-on-year basis, our Mobile Phones volumes in the first quarter 2013 were negatively affected by competitive industry dynamics, including intense smartphone competition at increasingly lower price points and intense competition at the low end of our product portfolio as well as an estimated higher than normal seasonal decline in the market addressable by Mobile Phones”, Nokia explains.
The only positive point among all this dreariness is the Nokia Siemens Networks division, which turned a ^a`not1 billion loss into a ^a`not3 million profit – so basically, they managed to stop the bleeding there. Lastly, the HERE maps division posted a ^a`not42 million loss. Add all this up, and Nokia lost ^a`not150 million in revenue in Q1 2013 (on ^a`not5.85 billion). And remember, Nokia still gets $250 million from Microsoft.
While there’s some positive points here and there, the overall picture is pretty grim, specifically for the consumer-facing side of Nokia. Feature phones sales are decreasing rapidly, smartphone sales have collapsed, and Windows Phone has – so far – proven to be the wrong bet. Ponder on this figure: in total WP7 and WP8 combined, Nokia only sold 19.9 million Lumia phones. That’s it. To put this into perspective: in the first quarter Nokia sold Lumia devices (Q3 2011), Nokia still sold close to 20 million Symbian devices. In other words, Nokia was pumping out more Symbian phones per quarter in 2011 than it has sold Lumia phones in total to date.
There is simply no way to spin this.
This is also terrible news for Microsoft. If Nokia only sold 19.9 million WP7/8 devices in total, that means the total sales for Windows Phone will be round and about 25 million tops, and even in the last quarter, 1/3 of WP sales were old, outdated and non-upgradeable Windows Phone 7 devices. As much as I like Windows Phone, we simply have to face the music, be honest, and just come out and say it: Windows Phone is a dud.
Rumor has it that Nokia will be bringing out a “phablet” in hopes that will jumpstart sales. Samsung has sold a ton of Galaxy Notes so Nokia thinks bigger might be better.
That news leaked to the Internet just in time to spread before the earnings call, call me a bitter tech blog reader^aEUR|
Nokia doesn^aEURTMt have much direction atm, and well, next quarter they^aEURTMll again have 20 million fewer ^aEUR~smart devices^aEURTM to keep them afloat. They are done :\
“Samsung has sold a ton of Galaxy Notes so Nokia thinks bigger might be better.”
No, Samsung didn’t sell a ton of Galaxy Notes if you consider the figures in their context and compare them to “normal” smartphones sales.
10 million Notes and 20 million and counting for the Note II. So you have AT LEAST 5 million more Note devices than Lumia devices out there. That’s significant no matter how you look at it.
I agree, they sold a ton. I’m not sure how well Nokia would fare though, unless Windows Phone made significant strides in pen computing which I doubt.
The Note I think is popular not just for its size, but because of the way you interact with it. Samsung is clearly ahead of most with this on a mobile phone device.
Its a shame because Microsof’t pen support in Windows 8 blows everyone out of the water.
Can you elaborate a bit? I recently received a Win8 tablet with a pen. Never really used pen input before, so I’m still adjusting to the whole thing.
They have really advanced pressure sensitivity, palm rejection, and handwriting recognition. Microsoft has been working on this longer than most, since it was the primary interaction paradigm for their early tablet efforts.
It depends which tablet though, the Surface Pro comes with a pressure sensitive pen and the screen has an addition digitizer for pen input.
A bit weird to say that Nokia is getting slaughtered in North America since they have never had a foothold there before. If anything the historical perspective makes that aspect appear relatively healthy.
The slaughter of Symbian devices does indeed bring the statistics down rather badly, but saying that sort of ignores the fact that Symbian devices are now dead, so the slaughter is in past tense, the current numbers are all the current portfolio and current plan for going forward. Nokia is still losing cash, but the Lumias and Ashas are now bringing in a healthy amount of money.
The thing the markets are upset about is the big drop in Nokias feature phone lines. This is a more critical part, since it brings in a lot of money overall, but really is a play in a segment that may not exist anymore going forward.
The point is not that Symbian sales are dropping; the point is that Nokia has nothing to offset that drop, and growth in Lumia sales is nowhere near close enough to fix that any time soon.
Remember that Nokia shouldn’t look at the past, but the future. There’s nothing in here that shines a positive light on Nokia’s future.
Year over year smart devices sales are down only 5%. Lumia/Asha are profitable and are bringing in an increasingly large part of the cash. The issue everyone else has is that feature phones (i.e. non-symbian) are down 36% year over year. Symbian was never the big money-maker for Nokia, Lumia/Asha are not a failure in displacing Symbian, the failure is that the low-end where Nokia made up a lot of volume is going away entirely.
A 49% drop in total smartphone sales is not a failure for you?
As a critique of the Nokia business, yes, Nokia made no meaningful reply to the iPhone.
But that is not the title of this post.
Also Nokia is not just a one division company. Losses in their smart devices division while posting strong gains to offset that from NSN or somewhere else is still a good thing.
Once you take out the one time charges that aren’t structural, Nokia posted a profit for the third consecutive quarter and actually improved their balance sheet.
This is what a mixed earning report is, mixed. Its wrong to universally spin this as good for Nokia, but it is also wrong to universally spin this as bad.
Its obvious the issues Nokia faced prior to this quarter they still face now, but it is also worth noting that their Windows Phone strategy is seeing increased momentum QoQ and YoY
Edited 2013-04-18 13:38 UTC
Did I miss something, where are the strong gains?
From their earnngs: “- Nokia Group strengthened its net cash position by approximately EUR 120 million sequentially. Nokia Siemens Networks contributed approximately EUR 210 million to the Nokia Group net cash position.”
They’ve also cut costs dramatically and increased their margins YoY.
You missed the part in the report that states the net sales of the NSN group are down 30%, and their net operating profit is down 99% from the previous quarter.
The whole corporation just took a beating, no matter how one tries to spin it.
Have you read why? These things are long for a reason. Just reading the bullet points at the top doesn’t cut it for analyzing the financial report.
The year-on-year decrease in Nokia Siemens Networks’ net sales in the first quarter 2013 was primarily due to divestments of businesses not consistent with Nokia Siemens Networks’ strategic focus as well as the exiting of certain customer contracts. Excluding these two factors, Nokia Siemens Networks’ net sales in the first quarter 2013 declined by approximately 1% as lower net sales of Global Services were almost entirely offset by higher net sales in Mobile Broadband. The year-on-year decline in Global Services was primarily due to lower net sales in Professional Services and Care. The year-on-year increase in Mobile Broadband was primarily due to higher LTE net sales, partially offset by lower WCDMA and Voice and IP transformation net sales.
Year-on-year, Nokia Siemens Networks’ non-IFRS sales and marketing expenses decreased 22% in the first quarter 2013 primarily due to structural cost savings. On a sequential basis, Nokia Siemens Networks non-IFRS sales and marketing expenses decreased 15% in the first quarter 2013 primarily due to lower incentive expenses and seasonally lower marketing spend.
Nokia Siemens Networks’ non-IFRS administrative and general expenses decreased 21% year-on-year in the first quarter 2013 primarily due to structural cost savings. On a sequential basis, Nokia Siemens Networks non-IFRS administrative and general expenses decreased 5% in the first quarter 2013, primarily due to lower incentive expenses.
Nokia is very forthcoming regarding exactly what’s going on with NSN, and why its not as bad as it seems when you just throw the numbers around like that. Unless of course, the $120 MILLION EUROS that NSN added to Nokia’s cash on hand is imaginary.
Frankly, it’s a bit too early for my taste for herring, specially the red kind.
Nothing that you quoted discounts what I wrote.
Oh, come on. I’m not sure you’re even aware what the word red herring even means.
Funny thing, I don’t think you understand what “word” means if you think “red herring” is one…
Again, nothing in your cut and paste contradicted what I wrote earlier. Good luck spinning these numbers out, you have your work cut out.
cheers.
Beside that, its funny how Nelson continues to stat Nokia made profit this quarter when they in fact made $200 million lose, disappointed investors once more and stock went down future 11% as result.
http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/n1_Xj85fOcw/
Nokia posted a non-IFRS profit this quarter. If you don’t know how to read an earnings report, please don’t comment.
Irrelevant. What counts is the sum at the end and that’s a fat $200 million lose. That’s the amount of hard money Nokia has lesser on bank now a quarter later.
Nokia increased their cash on hand. INCREASED THEIR CASH ON HAND. They ended up with more money this quarter then they had last quarter.
There’s a reason you post both profit figures — non IFRS profits take out the one time charges and inventory allowances that you make as a normal part of the sales processes. It gives you a much better look of the company’s health over the long run, beyond one quarter.
So the loss is important if you think Nokia will die next quarter, but since they won’t (and remember, according to you, Nokia has only two quarters left to live) then its much smarter to look at the financials by removing single quarter allowances, acquisitions, and divestment done recently.
It also gives insight into how the company is run, where non-IFRS numbers are used to make financial decisions. To you non-IFRS profit is irrelevant, but management in a company can see beyond one time charges and plan accordingly.
Its supplemental information. I’m well aware of Nokia’s loss, their non-IFRS numbers just provide context to those numbers by showing that a lot of the loss was non structural.
Again, there’s a reason why I’ve been right in saying that Nokia isn’t going to die and you’ve been wrong.
It isn’t about contradiction, it’s about giving context to the numbers. Trying to have a 1:1 YoY comparison to net sales when NSN has divested from a core market in the last year is foolish.
They’ve increased their margins while doing less, and contributed healthily to Nokia’s cash position because they’ve been able to run in a much leaner fashion.
Again, things you’d get if you took more a cursory glance at the earnings report. The numbers are provided, and that’s usually what catches headlines, but viewed within their proper context they tell a different story.
Nokia Siemens Network is, and has been for the last few quarters, contributing positively to Nokia’s financial position. Your misleading, incorrect, and agenda driven attempt to discredit NSN notwithstanding.
Stating it is a red herring to paste in exactly why NSN net sales dropped, is only evidence of your fanatical point of view.
Given that USA is the essential focal point in new Nokias management strategy of bringing it back to prominence (that’s why WP, a platform unfit for traditional Nokia markets in developing countries was chosen), it’s justifiable to say the strategy and Nokia along with it is being slaughtered.
So sales being up 9% year over year is being “slaughtered”? It is certainly not the wording I would use.
Offset by a 49% total reduction in smartphone sales and a 21% year-over-year drop in feature phone sales! Seriously, what’s wrong with you?
Yes, it still isn’t bad, given that they’ve grown Lumia sales sequentially for 12/13 of the last quarters and they’ve had three straight quarters of non-IFRS profitability.
Nelson! Now that we have the numbers and now that I got proven correct in my last quarters forecast that Nokia continues to burn there limited remaining cash (without option to get new cash caused of there junk-rating) isn’t there something you like to admit now? Something like dropping your quarterly “but they grow all time!” and “they are profitable, its changing!” you post here since over 2 years now?
Come on, even you can’t deny what’s happening with Nokia any longer.
Edited 2013-04-18 13:50 UTC
Nokia improved their cash on hand.
From their earnngs: “- Nokia Group strengthened its net cash position by approximately EUR 120 million sequentially. Nokia Siemens Networks contributed approximately EUR 210 million to the Nokia Group net cash position.”
But hey, you want to talk about instances where you’ve been correct?
Let’s take a look at what the insightful cdude has stated would happen, and what actually happened.
– You’ve previously said Nokia was not focusing on China.
This is WRONG.
Nokia was focusing on China. This financial result confirms that strong Lumia sales come partly from strong sales in China.
– You’ve previously said: “Its more a zombie. Not dead but also not alive. 4 quarters left till the head is cut off. Till then there is plenty time left to eat more brains.”
This is WRONG.
Nokia has improved its cash position and achieved underlying profitability.
You said this two quarters ago. So according to you Nokia has two quarters left before its fully dead.
– You’ve previously said: “Who is going to buy an expensive WP7 device if WP8 devices are available already?”
This is WRONG.
This financial report suggests that Nokia’s strategy of selling WP7 phones into the low end market is working, with 30% of their Lumia handsets being derived from their WP7 push.
– You’ve previously said: “Silverlight is already legacy and will not be supported in the future. It would be silly to build up anything new on it.”.
This is WRONG.
WP8 apps are built on a hybrid Silverlight and WinRT runtime.
– You previously said: “Do we have numbers from Samsung and HTC meanwhile? Not yet I think. If we believe in comCast and Nielsens then both, every of them, sold more WP7 devices then Nokia. That was when most already dropped out of WP7 and only those 3 left.”
This is WRONG.
Nokia controls 80% of the Windows Phone market and has pretty much commanded a presence from the beginning.
– You’ve previously said: “Making profit and grow again (or at least shrink not any longer) would be.”
This is WRONG.
They have posted a profit for three straight quarters. You have not acknowledged this.
– You’ve previously said: “The cut could mean the abort all markets that refused Lumia like China or where Lumia sold most worse like Russia”
This is WRONG.
Nokia Lumia is now very strong in both China and Russia.
Quite obviously you’re not as insightful as you think you are.
So, dude, you are trying to shift away. I take that as you admitting its not working and your way to agree with me a quarter later. Fine, be my guest.
Edited 2013-04-18 14:55 UTC
No. I just pointed out that you’ve been wrong and still are wrong about a lot of things. I also refuted your assertion that Nokia is burning through its cash when they increased their cash on hand by 120 MILLION EUROS.
What world do you live in?
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/04/lower-nokia-handset-sales-h…
Is this unexpected? They missed their EPS target, iirc, so the stock market isnt going to really like that.
What does that have to do with what NSN has done for Nokia’s bottom line?
I hope we’re not trying to correlate stock market value and company health.
But hey, if you’re so sure you’re right, put your money where your mouth is and short some Nokia stock. You’re a genius right? You should make a decent amount of money.
cdude, you have just been put in the full nelson.
I’m afraid that’s what he’s like. He lives in a sad, strange little world where Microsoft can do no wrong, it will all come good for Nokia and Windows Phone (or whatever it is called this week) and black is white.
Didn’t Nokia recently sell their ‘headquarters’ for ~$200 million in order to raise cash? That’s a one-time deal which probably helped this quarterly report.
No, that had nothing to do with their cash on hand in this quarter.
Err, I haven’t had my coffee yet. I meant Nokia has posted a profit for 4/5 last quarters.
A nicer way to write that would be “4 of the last 5 quarters”.
Edit: I completely misread a chart. Removed erroneous comment.
Edited 2013-04-18 13:15 UTC
Sales could be up 100% and they^aEURTMd still be ~A—20 behind Android sales in North America alone.
If Nokia doesn^aEURTMt manage to sell enough of their devices to get a foothold in the market to make those delicious network efforts work for them, small YoY gains wont mean much as it will start trending back into the negative again.
9% increase of squat is still only slightly higher than squat
Compared to Apple and Samsung, and overall market share, there’s no good news here for Nokia. They’ve hitched themselves onto a dud. This certainly wasn’t what they were hoping, and they can’t be happy with this.
I like WP8, but I think it’s too late.
Ssshhh your interfering with his axe..grinding
Country A has no presence in country B. Country A invades B, but they lose 80% of their invading army to the defending army, and lose massively. They are slaughtered.
North America was a very huge focus for Nokia. They clearly failed. They are being slaughtered in the market they bet a whole lot on.
I actually agree with Thom in that we need to be sober in the analysis of Nokia’s North American attempts. There’s no doubt they have work to do sealing the deal there. The US numbers are pitiful.
Nokia had with Symbian 2% of the US market, then switched to US-Microsoft WP and focused on US (giving up e.g there 60% Symbian share in China by killing Symbian and not pushing Lumia to China) and have now, 2 years later with massive investment, lesser then before. Even only in US with leaving the results of there US focus-shift (eg Symbian in China, Africa, et ) out. In the homeland of Microsoft, with AT&T, with the highest marketing budget ever.
Edited 2013-04-18 13:58 UTC
Die Nokia. For betraying Symbian and leaving me with a stock of currently unsupported phones.
The crowd (folks, consumers) have spoken ! Whatever Microsoft tries pouring down people’s throat, it doesn’t work anymore, their only fate is living from old/bought IPs and licensing scheme.
They should have left Nokia with their aging Symbian line trying to go Meamo, instead to force people to use Windows Phone. See, no more OS competition even amongst Nokia’s very own products, it’s like putting all the eggs in the same basket.
You fell, you loose…
Kochise
They had a really amazing run, though. From the early MS BASIC on home computers, to DOS on early PCs, to Windows-on-DOS and Office, to Windows-on-NT, Microsoft defined computing for legions of people over the majority of my life.
They also survived some amazingly bad missteps, from DOS 4 and OS/2 (from their ill-fated partnership with IBM) to Microsoft Network (their ill-fated “Internet Killer”) to Windows ME and Bob and Vista. But they always bounced back, largely by clubbing their competition out of the market with monopoly leverage. They left numerous openings, but too little competition to exploit them.
They tried to keep Apple on life-support while fighting the anti-trust case against the Clinton administration, so it is perhaps fitting that it was Apple’s iPhone that finally exploded through yet one more opening – capacitative touchscreens – and revealed that non-Windows environments could be not just usable, but great. Apple’s Mac sales have risen in response to its status as the best iOS development environment.
Once the “Windows-compatible” moniker became a curse rather than a compliment, it was only a matter of time before a multi-vendor environment like Android largely took the commodity computing market from the previous multi-vendor champion, Windows. (By that I mean that while Windows still holds the dominant share of the declining desktop market, most of the growth is in mobile where Android dominates.)
I’m rather suspicious that Macs will follow a similar trajectory to iPhones – taking market share from Microsoft initially, but eventually holding a strong and insanely profitable minority share to a new multi-vendor commmodity leader. I don’t know if the new leader will be Google’s Chrome (which complements Android), or Canonical’s Ubuntu (which covers all markets with the same core product), a resurgent Microsoft with Windows 9 (they have more cash than most countries), or an even darker horse.
But I couldn’t be happier. To me, as the Internet under IE 6, desktop computing had become rather boring under Windows.
Here’s to living in interesting times, and thanks to OSAlert for keeping me sane during the long winter.
I don’t agree with your opinion. While Nokia is certainly selling less smartphones, due to the abrupt disappearance of Symbian, on the Windows front there seems to be a healthy growth. If the trend continues and Nokia holds on, the WP devices will make up for the Symbian phones in 2-3 years.
As for the U.S. market, I believe that Nokia doesn’t have enough notoriety there and I agree that, at least there, it’s a dud.
And in 50 years the have 100% market share … if grow is linear. But even if, they did not grow. That’s just noise in a number to small to measure.
Edited 2013-04-18 14:04 UTC
Obviously they can’t grow forever, but I feel that for now it looks OK for Nokia. Even if their traditional products are going down hard (cheap phones are probably replaced by basic Android devices and Symbian is thankfully dead), the direction they are actually focusing their efforts on is steadily growing (and a few million phones is not just noise). I think Thom was too quick to judge.
What trend? Their net sales are down 20% from last year, and it accelerated last quarter. So that means the Lumias represent, if anything, an increasing percentage of a shrinking sales volume. Not a good place to be.
Well, they are focusing on Windows devices and that part of their business is growing, which is good, while the parts on which they’re not focusing are going down as expected.
Sure, Symbian is going down faster than Windows is growing, but if MS will prop them for another year or so, I think Nokia will be ok.
But the point is that the growth of the windows phone sales have been nowhere near what nokia required, in terms of overall market share, just to maintain itself at its current size/level as an organization.
It is patently clear that WP will no be able to provide nokia with the same sales volume that symbian did. So overall it is not a key of “growth” but significant “shrinkage.”
This is all rooted in Elop’s unfortunate Osborning of the old Symbian platform. Had he done things in the right order – i.e. burning Symbian after its Win8 successor was hitting the shelves – those Symbian users would’ve jumped to their new Win8 platform, helping to bootstrap that, rather than jumping to their competitors. So having hurt their brand and failed to migrate its existing customer base successfully, Nokia now have the painful task of building a whole new customer base largely from scratch – a long, difficult process at the best of times.
That said, I don’t share Thom’s thoroughly negative assessment of Nokia’s future. And, strategic scheduling blunders aside, I still think their Win8 choice was in itself a sound one (i.e. the least unpromising option they had). Nokia’s graphs obviously don’t (yet?) show the exponential growth their new Win8 platform needs, but it’s obvious the Symbian collapse has finally bottomed out so there won’t be any more shrinkage caused by that. i.e. The damage phase is over, and everything now hinges on the rebuilding phase.
Commentators are already boldly pronouncing Act III a dud, but in truth Nokia are only on Act I, and I think it’ll be another year or two before we can see if the new lineup can achieve the upward curve it now needs or ultimately just flatlines. Their new lineup reviews excellently and the low-end 620 and new 520 in particular are really priced to move, so now it’s a question of how effectively Nokia can build new mindshare.
IOW, it’s now a marketing challenge, not a technical one. All the tech pundits (including Thom) agree the products themselves are solid and pretty mature now. If they really want to kvetch about something, they should be whipping Nokia Marketing for not busting a gut to ensure their quality products stand out from the sea of me-too Android devices (e.g. by aggressively pushing dedicated product stands into all the big high-street vendors as Apple already does).
They try so since over two years now. Its not working. There is no demand for there products any longer like there was two years ago. Must be bad luck the demand vanished with the new products since it can’t be because of the products. What customer cares about the products? Its all marketing like we saw last years NOT.
Now that’s an optimistic view. Shrinking from the market leader to the market bottom indeed is positive since you have nothing to lose anymore. Good job done! Now they just need a to kill themselves so nobody can kill them any longer. What a clever business strategy!
In February 2011 Elop himself wrote that the transition period is two years. First the transition finished. Customers switched from Symbian to iPhone and Android. Second that two years are passed and NOW that transition to the bottom, to where they cannot lose much anymore, is done, completed, over. There is nothing left to transition.
But yes, for some it will always take one year longer, success comes tomorrow, next game I win all my lost money back, pp.
Reviews by Nokia Communications. To bad its the not-existing customers that count at the end of the 8 quarters we passed now.
Same like it was past years what is why Microsoft, Nokia, AT&T, etc burned billions with marketing and achieved nothing. Even decline in the US, there marketing focus. By far more marketing money then any of the pre-Lumia got which all sold far better.
If your product doesn’t sell, if customers reject it over years, if you sell even lesser when adding more marketing then something may faulty with the product, not the marketing.
They could start paying rather then demanding money for there products. That could increase there sales figures a lot!
Edited 2013-04-20 17:51 UTC
Did you read anything I wrote? I already called out Elop for his well-intentioned but commercially disastrous Osborning of Nokia. If I was a shareholder I’d have been aghast at his “burning platform” announcement; yes, Elop was right, but you don’t say such things publicly if you want to retain consumer and shareholder confidence while you’re trying to fix it.
I already explained how Elop should’ve kept quiet about EOLing Symbian until their Win8 products were ready, and then burned it to bootstrap their new platform’s user base, which in turn would’ve created more confidence amongst other shoppers that this was a strong platform worth consideration rather than an unknown quantity, an odd kid out in a sea of ‘safe’ Android products.
Nevertheless, the Symbian flight is done: they can’t lose any more sales that way. So the Symbian->Win8 ‘transition’ is complete; it just wasn’t done in a way that would’ve retained their existing customers.
To reiterate: it wasn’t the decision to adopt Win8 that did Nokia damage, it was a single premature public announcement by a newbie CEO. That sort of idiot slip can and does destroy industry-leading companies, no mendacity or Machiavellian machinations required: just ask Adam Osborne, for whom the “Osborne Effect” is named. And he had a lot more experience than Elop when he nuked his industry-leading Osborne Computer Corporation into the ground.
Win8 haters who willfully ignore all these non-technical factors and wider history just so they can use Nokia’s fall as an excuse to trash Win8 and MS are being intellectually dishonest trolly trolly weasels. We get it, you don’t like Win8 and feel personally betrayed by MS’s decision to stop kissing your ass and try kissing somebody else’s for a change. Tough titties, MS doesn’t owe you a thing; and if you’re still not happy FOSS/Linux is just over there: feel free to build your own.
Now you’re just being a dick. I identified a genuine problem with how Nokia products are being presented on the high street: scattered randomly across general product shelving where they’re drowned in a sea of largely undistinguished uniform Android devices.
You think iPhones would be holding their own position as highly desirable premium products if Apple let stores treat their products that way? Hell, no, they buy dedicated shelf space from those stores and put up their own Apple product displays which they have designed and built themselves. And that investment pays them back, because when shoppers walk into the store they still see the same vast dull sea of Android devices, but standing out from it all is this ruddy great physical monument to the total and utter awesomeness of Apple products.
Apple and Nokia are both selling products that fly in the face of the Android orthodoxy. Apple seize their ‘differentness’ by the hairy ones and turn that seeming liability into a major selling point. Nokia marketing can run all the gorgeous high-profile TV campaigns it likes, but the moment potential buyers walk into a store, they see a glossy premium Apple iPhone stand along with shelves of ‘safe choice’ Android devices. Rummage those shelves long enough and they might find the Nokia handset they were thinking of looking at, stuck in there like the proverbial red-headed stepchild. Not the way to create a great first impression or reassure potential buyers that this is a platform on the rise, one they can really trust in.
Seriously, I may not be a marketing bod by trade, but I trained in art and have been around brand designers and sales types enough to appreciate that what they do (or don’t do) is a critical factor in determining the popular success or failure of a mass-market product. Heck, in one job I even left the computer to go humph branded floor display stands into high-street shops and fill them with our company’s products. Believe me, presentation makes a difference. Maybe if you put some effort into expanding your understanding of the larger world beyond your own nerd-centered comfort zone and personal preconceptions and prejudices, you might find something substantive to contribute next time.
Even after there Lumia got available in the market near all of the Symbian users switched away to something else, not Lumia. Nokia customers rejected Lumia while Nokia gave them no choice so customers switched to competition. That pattern continued even with WP8 Lumia. Close to all the loyal smartphone customers Nokia had, and that number WAS amazing, switched to competition. The same pattern still applies with there feature phones. Near all of there ex feature phone customers switched or are switching to competition when going smartphone.
Just get it, the numbers speak for themself: customers reject WP (not only Lumia, see HTC and even Samsung) and since Nokia has nothing else to offer (unlike all other mobile players) they are where they are: at the bottom, a struggling niche offer.
It had one, no two, of the world-wide strongest brands assigned. Nokia had by far the most loyal customers. There customers looked at that forced “upgrade-path”, at the product and active rejected to switch to something else. It can’t become more clear then that that the Lumia productline was and still is active rejected by 98% of the market, probably 99% of ex Nokia customers.
Exactly. The market leader, the number 1, goes by and changes its productlines while EOLing the previous product and all customers switch to competition. All that in 2 years. An amazing management mistake. Unique in history by size, speed and lost values.
That, the position Nokia is in, was a management decision. Win8 wasn’t even out then and haters gonna hate anyways. They didn’t played a role during all that.
Come on. Comparing iPhone with Lumia and breaking the difference down to marketing? That’s either blind or cheap. There is so much more.
For 20% Apple iPhone users and 2% Nokia Lumia users. The other 78% not agree with you
One factor, there are many more. Marketing alone can’t turn around everything what was just demonstrated again. This time by Nokia, Microsoft, AT&T, etc. I gonna say marketing will not save them. They need to improve the product.
Edited 2013-04-22 16:57 UTC
He probably hardly read it (besides, look at his EN…); yes he just hates the new Nokia allied with MS; yes he is; and he won’t venture out of his prejudices. Don’t bother with him… certainly don’t waste time writing such lengthy posts as you do.
They don’t care about drop in sales. Patent litigation is their new bussiness model.
They hoped and hoped that Windows Phone would take off and they bet their future on this.
Now, the only thing that can save Nokia is launching Android phones.
I think that considering their expertise, they can compete with success against the likes of Samsung.
Uh, their Windows Phone sales are up, and have been climbing sequentially.
Sure, if going from 0.1 smartphone market share to 0.12 counts as climbing.
They sold 17 million Lumias in 2012. But I guess that’s a failure, somehow.
There is a clear trend and a clear acceleration. The worst part of Nokia’s transition is behind them. Now they need to double down on their strategy and keep steadily increasing their volume.
This isn’t going to happen in one quarter, but you can see the trend for Windows Phone sales.
Rank . . Manufacturer . Units . . . Market Share . Was in Q3 of 2012 . . OS supported (coming),[ending]
1 (1) . . . Samsung . . . 63.9 M . . 29.4 % . . . . . .( 32.8 %) . . . . . . . . . Android, bada, Windows, (Tizen)
2 (2) . . . Apple . . . . . . 47.8 M . . 22.0 % . . . . . . ( 15.7 %) . . . . . . . . . iOS
3 (3) . . . Huawei . . . . . 20.2 M . . . 9.3 % . . . . . . ( 9.3 %) . . . . . . . . . Android, (Tizen)
4 (5) . . . ZTE . . . . . . . 12.4 M . . . 5.7 % . . . . . . ( 4.7 %) . . . . . . . . . Android, Windows, (Firefox)
5 (9) . . . Lenovo . . . . . . 9.4 M . . . 4.3 % . . . . . . ( 4.1 %) . . . . . . . . . Android
6 (4) . . . Sony . . . . . . . 8.7 M . . . 4.0 % . . . . . . ( 5.1 %) . . . . . . . . . Android
7 (8) . . . LG . . . . . . . . . 8.6 M . . . 4.0 % . . . . . . ( 4.2 %) . . . . . . . . . Android
8 (6) . . . HTC . . . . . . . . 7.0 M . . . 3.2 % . . . . . . ( 4.6 %) . . . . . . . . . Android, Windows
9 (7) . . . RIM . . . . . . . . 6.9 M . . . 3.2 % . . . . . . ( 4.3 %) . . . . . . . . . Blackberry
10 (10) . Nokia . . . . . . . 6.6 M . . . 3.0 % . . . . . . ( 3.7 %) . . . . . . . . . Windows, [Symbian], [MeeGo]
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.7 M . . 11.8 % . . . . . . ( 11.6 %) . . . . . . . . . Android, Windows, others, (Tizen), (Sailfish)
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . 217.2 M
As you can see, even Lenovo sold more smartphones than Nokia. Huawei and Zte sold much, much more. And 4 years ago Nokia was #1 mobile phone seller while Huawei and Lenovo were maybe in top 100 while Lenovo didn’t even sell phones at that time.
Now, tell me more about Nokia’s massive growth.
Edited 2013-04-18 14:38 UTC
Its nice that you can copy and paste a chart from somewhere, but that has nothing to do with my statement.
I also never claimed that Nokia had explosive growth, only steady and encouraging sequential growth.
Except… Their growth in the market that counts – smartphones – isn’t steady at all. In fact, ever since the announcement of the switch to WP, it’s been dropping like a brick. Right up until the WP announcement, even Symbian sales were up EVERY. SINGLE. QUARTER. After the announcement, everything collapsed.
Even if you look at just Lumia sales, there hasn’t been “steady” growth at all – it’s been a rollercoaster of ups and downs.
It baffles me how you can still call Nokia healthy. Had Nokia been posting these very same figures with Android, you would have sung a completely different tune, proclaiming Nokia another example of nobody being able to make money off Android.
No I wouldn’t. Its important to separate my enjoyment and evangelism of Windows Phone from my curiosity in how a company facing some pretty steep challenges can navigate them.
The fact that they use Windows Phone is coincidental, but I’d be just as interested if they were doing something genuinely cool with Android. Just like I’m interested in BlackBerry and Jolla and Firefox. I doubt them all to varying degree, just like I have expressed my reservations about Windows Phone — but I am absolutely fascinated by watching these companies try to chip away at the more established players.
I also enjoy trying to predict what happens, being right, and being wrong.
You make a point that they’re not moving the needle much in marketshare, but that to me is an afterthought beyond managing a transition and stabilizing their financial position.
There are two challenges for Nokia: Stay alive, and grow your shipments. Windows Phone 8 growing overall is a Microsoft problem, and I understand that Nokia can only do so much.
I still think despite this, they made the right long term bet with Windows Phone, especially given the information they had at the time. Would they be selling more with Android? Maybe if they found a creative way to buy themselves enough time to see the strategy through. I just don’t think they wouldve had the financial means to get there.
Do you think Nokia in the US would’ve gone down better with an Android phone? I’m not entirely sure. They have a lot of work to do making their brand attractive in the US.
Dude, you’ve got something to prove, or what? From your graph, the green part is growing steadily: http://imgur.com/1XFmbUK
Yes, there was an anomaly at one point, probably some holiday season or something, but the trend is clear. How is that bad news, again?
They’ve just lost their cash cows and that’s bad news for them, but their Windows Phone effort seems to be on the right track.
Split that green graph off into WP7 and WP8. 1/3 of all there Lumia sold in Q1 where written off and under price sold WP7. Include that and you get a waveform of ups and downs. You should also remove the first quarter from your graph or interpolate it since it wasn’t a full quarter. So much for basic accuracy when splitting out single numbers of a whole diagram to make a specific point out of the original context.
Taken the very small numbers of sold units into account you yourself waiting a week to buy your new Lumia becomes visible. Also better use double double for calculations since rounding errors have huge effects on your graph.
Edited 2013-04-20 18:17 UTC
Nokia is still selling Windows Phone 7 devices. The Nokia 505, 510, and 610 are still being sold and advertised around the world, and people are still buying them.
Its incredible that people bitch about this, its like there still being Android 4.0 an 4.1 devices out there. Its not like Nokia is selling a Windows Mobile handset.
Yeah, well, to see the big picture, let’s express that growth you claim they are experimenting in percents of global smartphone sales figure.
What’s that growth, then?
Edited 2013-04-18 14:45 UTC
That isn’t what sequential growth means. It means growth Quarter over Quarter compared to themselves, not growth compared to anyone else.
Its useful for measuring momentum without having your figures diluted by a transitional year. Everyone already knows that Nokia isn’t selling tens of millions of phones a quarter. We know this.
What is additionally useful though is how Nokia is operating on a more short term basis because it can give hints towards future trends. If the trend is that Nokia is steadily increasing its volumes, then it can be seen as an indicator of slow but steady growth.
It is also why I repeatedly bring out regional breakdowns of sales because it helps to serve as an early indicator of growth of the platform.
Let’s compare Nokia’s profits from 2007 or 2008 with profits from 2012, then.
Nobody is saying they don’t grow. But the speed at which they grow is very slow. And if that slow growing speed is applied to a low market share, overall numbers are still bad.
I think we have an agreement, you just want to disagree with me very bad. I don’t disagree that Nokia is selling less phones than before. That’s irrefutable fact. They are. Their traditional markets are collapsing.
What I am commenting on are the positive signs in their new strategy, and why it isn’t necessarily doomed to fail. I’m also countering the ludicrous notion that Nokia is going to die anytime soon.
Their feature phone business and Symbian sales having trouble is an indictment on those respective things. However, with regards to Windows Phone itself, their strategy, is going pretty well.
They’re not going to go from 0-20million phones a quarter over night. Establishing a brand, a fleet of devices, catching up competitively, seeding the developer ecosystem, setting up the infrastructure and sales channel personnel, making the right content and app deals, etc. all takes time to translate into an appreciable return on investment.
I don’t understand what exactly people expect Nokia to sell, or what they would expect Nokia to sell with Android. Surely you didn’t expect them to be pumping out those type of numbers by now with Android, did you?
So from 3.7% marketshare in Q3 to 3.0% now is unrelated to your statement they sequential grow?
Considering I specifically said volume, yes.
That chart puts your statement in context, which I assume it’s why you did not appreciate it.
No, the chart just says what is obvious, that Nokia’s volumes still need to improve. Something I’ve said before.
That’s completely separate from what I also said, which is that their volumes are increasing sequentially to the tune of over a million units a quarter.
Just because Nokia’s job isn’t done yet doesn’t mean they’re working and making progress towards getting there.
You forget here that only instant success is allowed if it in anyway involves Microsoft.
Your microsoft spidey sense was tingling, apparently.
Well it pretty much works like I said. I like how you guys pretend like it doesn’t, when there is a clear pattern to when you actually post.
2 years arn’t instant in mobile they are a full turn-around circle and that’s what happened. Do they have 2 more years?
So in other words that chart put your statement in context, which it’s why you did not appreciate it.
Apple sold 47.8 million iPhones in Quarter 1 of 2013 alone. This was a 29% growth from the year before.
Samsungs increases are even more impressive. They sold 70 million smart phones in Q1 of 2013, and currently sell more than 25 million smart phones per month. They basically sell more smart phones per month than Nokia does per year.
For the last 5 years, we have been in a massive and ongoing upwards trend for smart phone sales. The typical YoY growth for the big players in this market is 20%+, and this is players who are already selling massively.
Nokia is doing neither. They have sales figures which have halved in a year. If you don’t massively increase your smart phone sales during this massive market expansion, you are doing extremely poorly.
From Nokia Q4 2012 report: “Smart Devices shipped a total of 13.4 million Lumia devices in 2012.”
A Lumia 920 with Jelly Bean 4.2.2, let me think about that one…
Agree !
Kochise
Definitely. I was sad when they cast their lot in with Microsoft. I wanted a Nokia android phone.
I can see why they didn’t go that route, I think they were thinking they couldn’t compete well enough with Samsung, HTC and Motorola (and the long tail of other Android handset manufacturers).. So they went with Microsoft to differentiate, and also, how can you say no to $1 Billion.
If they can hang on for a few years they may be able to climb up to some level. It’s going to be very difficult to dethrone Apple and Google’s Army of manufacturers in that timeframe though.
> considering their expertise
That expertise is long gone. R&D and production suffered most from Elop’s removing of in-house expertise when it all was done at Microsoft.
Android is Linux. To stupid they have NOW such a bad stand among Linux talent and no money to compensate with higher sallery. Nokia went from one of the top companies to work for to one of the worst in just 2 years. Not going to happen they can rebuild in-house expertise fast enough.
> they can compete with success against the likes of Samsung.
They can’t even bring Android to market without the talent that isn’t with them any longer. Compete against Samsung? lol
Edited 2013-04-18 14:13 UTC
When Symbian was king, Nokia was a big behemoth so they needed those millinos devices to be sold to keep themselves running. Now Nokia is just a small show somwhere in the countryside of Finland and they are therefore more healthy than ever with much smaller WP sales.
So total amount of phones sold dropped massively but the size of Nokia has dropped more. So from the income/expenses point of view the situation is OK.
Exactly this, also the Average Selling Price of their smart devices has risen on Lumia sales, which partially offsets the drop in volume from Symbian.
… however Nokia profit margins have plummeted, which means that even though they may be selling more expensive products, they still ain’t making that much money off them.
And that is ignoring the fact that their net sales figures are down across the board, with some exceptions, so they are selling less stuff at the end of the day.
They do have some products that may sell well in developing markets, so that may bring some relief to Nokia soon though. But there is also the issue that their competition ain’t sitting still either…
Well since you didn’t provide a specific number, I’m not sure if you mean specifically to the Devices&Services, Smart Devices, or the company as a whole.
D&S is obviously influenced as a whole by Symbian pains, I tried to get operating figures for SD specifically but couldn’t find any. I did find gross margin which looks at it from a simple cost to produce POV.
Nokia gross margins for Smart Devices have increased precisely because of higher ASPs, and the way it relates to operating margin is influenced by a few different factors including marketing/subsidy/other selling costs and price erosion.
Check out the Operating Margin and Operating Profit from their financial report, they’re pitiful. They barely have any margin across the board at the end of the day.
In any case, the nokia guys have their work cut out for them, good luck spinning this report out. Ouch.
I’m not really spinning much of anything, because even when spun, it doesnt really make much of a difference besides in a larger sense. It only serves to provide a sense of direction and an overall trend.
I’m not making excuses or apologizing for Nokia’s very serious problems.
Yes. Nokia sales will always look terrible if you compare them to what they used to sell, because its been a huge fall. That doesn’t mean that Nokia’s Lumia sales when viewed in isolation are terrible, only modest and need improvement.
What happens when Nokia moves on to 7 million, then 10, then 12 million phones a quarter? Pretty soon it starts to make a difference, and being able to see these trends early is whats important.
I don’t quite understan the outrage some people seem to have with me trying to provide an assessment from a different angle. Its no longer objective, people on OSAlert and other places irrationally want Nokia to fail. In fact, they enjoy the fact that Nokia is failing and that people are losing their jobs and livelihoods.
I never understood the blood sport, but I digress.
Come again?
glorious, isn’t it?
Not really. You guys ignore the argument he is making while he is admitting percentage market share is down.
If you like Microsoft’s stuff on this website, you automatically have people like yourselves gang up on you.
Hah, I don’t pay too much mind to it. It comes with the territory and I enjoy being sort of an underdog when it comes to these type of threads.
It makes it that much more enjoyable when rational thinking prevails and hey, guess what, Nokia didn’t die this quarter, or the last, or the one before that.
People who think that a company who is increasingly more financially stable and shipping higher volumes of phones every quarter is going to die are devoid of all logic. Nokia is in serious shit, but they’re not in a casket.
I wonder what this guy, cdude, and others are going to do when a year from now Nokia is still alive and in fact selling an even higher volume of phones?
I understand that them dropping MeeGo shit in a lot of people’s cornflakes, but this was like 2011, get over it.
My point being that I’m accused of spinning numbers that make no material difference in a long run market share sense.
I know Nokia has much to do with regards to volume and marketshare — but I’m not making excuses for that, or claiming that their numbers today or over this past year do much to ameliorate that difficulty.
All I’m saying is that these numbers show an encouraging momentum, which if persisted, could turn into good news down the line.
I think I’ve stressed this point enough, and I’ve been right on Nokia a hell of a lot more than anyone else on this website.
If your company falls and shrinks that fast while explicit shrinking talent away then you are left with those who may not able to find a new, better place to work at.
During past 2 years whenever we read Nokia fires another bunch of people who did they fire? Where did they decrease? Not at management level, not marketing, not at lawyers. Production and R&D! That gives you a water-head company with 20 levels of management and nobody left below for execution. Good luck with that when being forced to produce something again rather then only repackage, market and resell what comes out of Redmond.
Even hardware-expertise is lost. That’s why Lumia is still Lanku, why Pureview was lost, why qwerty was lost.
What stays is the name and a believe Nokia is still the same Nokia like before.
Edited 2013-04-18 14:32 UTC
The worst is that the Nokia problem was a management problem.
If Nokia had decided to go with Android, the had the possibility to negotiate a very strong position with Google, basically they had the possibility to negotiate to only incorporate the Play market without any other Google sanctioned apps having a true possibility for differentiation with other manufacturers.
Other possibility and the best for Nokia in my view was to split in two phone companies. A high quality business and government oriented company maintaining the Nokia name, with a strategy to unify S40 and Symbian in scalable smart featured phone platform and continuing pushing Meego to the high end market, all in a quasi unified QT development platform with some exclusive Meego extensions, only manufactured in Europe. And a second company more consumer oriented, that make phones in 3 platform, a common smart featured phone platform with the Nokia brand, Android and Windows but with the possibility to incorporate Meego depending on the market situation. This second company manufactured in any part of the world, pushing its phone strategy from low end to consumer high end.
Or use Ovi which was back then ahead of Google Play world-wide.
QT does on Android and Android apps on MeeGo just like Tizen is able to run Android and Bada apps. Even Blackberry went with an Android bridge. A pattern all those more successful then Nokia apply. Its only Elop who went on an ecosystem-war (and lost that). A fool to fight on such a front if it gives you nothing but lose.
Edited 2013-04-21 12:28 UTC
They tried something like that for some time – and it didn’t work.
profitability keeps the doors open.
It’s just a shame that during the fastest growth market in history nokia went from having the largest share to having almost none of it.
That’s absolutely historic and I’m sure business textbooks will use nokia’s collapse as a case study on business failure for many years to come.
Nokia’s stupidest mistake was to bet it all exclusively on one single dinosaur vendor instead of nimbly keeping their options open. If they would have even kept their fingers in android they could still have a healthy marketshare and definitely better leverage against microsoft.
HTC, Samsung, LG, Sony all were able to adjust to the market because they kept their options open.
Edited 2013-04-18 16:30 UTC
They all do rather poorly except for Samsung…
Thom I think you’re correct in highlighting the poor performance in the US – there is simply no avoiding the fact that their strategy has failed there so far. The alliance with AT&T where hero devices are given exclusivity with negligible marketing support from the carrier is never going to help, especially when it isn’t even the biggest carrier. Troubling still is that they can’t even crack 1 million devices per quarter in North America. Even the staunchest Nokia supporter has to concede that isn’t good.
For me, the most important quarters will be Q2 and Q3 to see if the Lumia sales keep increasing. If they hover around current levels or decrease then Nokia will be in a bit of crap. However, going on current trends, it appears Lumias are being well received outside of the US. Who knows, China and India might be the more relevant indicators of success going forward considering market size there.
You know that in China and India they are using either feature phones either low priced Android phones made in China, right?
Question: Did you even read Nokia’s earnings report?
And?
And what? It might be early, and I may need glasses, but I dont think I was replying to you.
http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/04/18/nokia-is-failing-in-china/
The self-delusion in the comments is strong.
Anyone saying that Nokia is doing okay, good, or anything remotely positive is only signaling that they are Nokia fanboys who hope and pray that they maintain some type of presence or relevance even if it is greatly diminished as to be near irrelevant.
But they are undercutting that message by not having the balls to actually just say that. And what they are saying instead is completely divorced from any understanding of business, proportionality, or reality.
Are there still Nokia fanboys? I used to be favorable to them…but since their U turns, I really don’t give a crap about their fate.
Question is who will continue to sell Windows Phones after Nokia dies? And they will die if they continue to pursue the same strategy.
Maybe Microsoft will buy Nokia and continue to sell Windows Phones at a loss?
Microsoft has long been rumoured to work on a Surface Phone. So if Nokia folds, Samsung&Huawei fully concentrate on Android/Tizen, and HTC fails to return to previous strengths, they have a plan B.
Plan B is to copy the massive success that is Surface?
How many carriers will be excited about trying Surface if Microsoft lets Nokia drop out of the market?
Nokia is the only thing keeping WP above water. It might as well be called Nokia OS.
Its just that above water isn’t enough. Even without Nokia Microsoft would still sell some devices and even only one keeps them above water. But that’s not enough. They need significant market share. Nokia doesn’t help here. In fact before Nokia joined WP market share was more or less the same its now.
Microsoft knows that. Bill Gates himself wrote there strategy failed. That applies to Surface and to the Nokia partnership. They already are changing. Huawei is there strategic partner for Africa. Once Nokia land but now its Huawei for Microsoft. Same for the WP8 hero-device, the showcase. That wasn’t from Nokia, it was from HTC.
If Microsoft has more success with an own Surface Phone is as questionable as Nokia coming back anytime. What stays? Partnerships with other candidates. HTC isn’t going to help them either. Huawei is mostly Android, Samsung rejected. Dell? Who else would be stupid enough to try where even Nokia, the market-leader back then, failed and got destroyed on the way trying?
Edited 2013-04-21 12:46 UTC
Now Nokia is a threat, like a leaking nuclear submarine which can explode with patents at any point.
and Google just announced that they are activating 1.5 million Android devices in a DAY! So, in one month’s time, Google will have sold more devices than Nokia has in 3 YEARS! Does anyone think that they have a ghost of a chance of competing with that? ANYONE?
I agree with your point, generally, but Google is NOT SELLING 1.5 million devices per day.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/16/eric-schmidt-google-now-at-1-5-m…
Yes, they are!
Actually, Google does not sell that many themselves.
If you count not Google but Android device sales, the number will likely be even higher because a large part of Chinese domestic sales is not counted (neither by analysts nor through device activations).
These are activated Android phones (from multiple manufacturers) that access the Play store. That’s how they track them now. So your assertion is either false, or splitting hairs. Either way, they are being buried.
Even with me being utterly demeaning, you are still too dense to understand the difference between “Google is selling…” and “Google is activating Android devices sold by other companies”?! Sad state of education these days.
Google has a play store through which they sell Nexus devices. Some devices are also sold through the channel.
The popularity of Nexus devices is an important measure, so it is good to distinguish between Google and Android sales.
This is my point, or more generally, that discussion & debate benefit from simple accuracy of language. Maybe you meant to reply to our confused friend, jnemesh?
Only if you like to make a point. Google is not and never planed to make money with Android through hardware sales. Its there services which bring money in. And those devices that access Google Play have there services installed (the full package). Chinese manufacture not using Google services and so not Google Play are not counted. Same with western offers cause its irrelevant for Google’s services, there income source, there business strategy.
Under this light counting activations of devices using there services is the most accurate thing for them since a sold device says nothing about there services being used.
What you may additional do is to count sold Motorolla device units extra since that’s where Google does indeed hardware. But then Moto was a long-term strategy decision and we not saw yet there first new device wave.
Counting Nexus units is stupid. Google doesn’t make the hardware or gets a dime from it. Nexus devices are just like any other devices where there services are pre-installed and used. Difference is that Google can push updates to them. How that benefits there service-income through network-effects isn’t known, hard to guess or even measure. I think it’s more a strategy decision to drive there ecosystem forward then a direct service-benefit.
Edited 2013-04-21 13:14 UTC
No, they aren’t.
I know reading can be a challenge to some and, for some reason, a lot of OSAlert readers think they can make up their own definitions to words, but re-read your comment, my comment, and your link about 40 times — maybe you’ll eventually figure it out.
Edited 2013-04-18 18:57 UTC
get bent, fanboy.
Google is activating 1.5m phones per day.
No shit. Am I supposed to be the slow one here?
What does that have to do with how many sales Samsung, Apple, HTC, Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Sony, LG, HTC, RIM, Nokia, and the misc. other Others which includes (somehow performing even worse than RIM, Nokia, and HTC) Google/Motorola and Google/contracted through Samsung, Asus, HTC, LG, or any other manufacturer?
Because it doesn’t look like Google is particularly successful as a manufacturer and seller of mobile hardware either. Maybe liked and well-reviewed, but not obviously a sales success.
Because that’s not there business. There business, where they make the money, are there services. Android is the door to there services. That door is closed on e.g. Windows Phone. By far most Android devices, those counted with activations, are using there services. That’s lot of money for Google. Have a look at there annual numbers.
Edited 2013-04-21 13:24 UTC
[quote]to burn there limited remaining cash (without option to get new cash caused of there junk-rating)[/quote]
So, they burnt here some limited remaining cash, and then burnt there some limited remaining cash. Am I reading this right? Oh, you meant “their”. Then stop making mistakes a third-grader wouldn’t make!
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I’d fire Elop, jettison windows phone, and purchase Jolla.
They’ve solved their “we have x competing platforms” problem — they now have zero viable platforms, and have jettisoned all the competing smart-phone divisions.
One more focus shift (back to your roots) may get people clamoring for the jolla (errr, nokia of yore) product.
It’s a crazy idea, I know, but let’s face it, lumia hardware with sailfish would be a good combo, and put nokia back into a position where they control their own destiny.
Heck, I’d buy one of those phone. Windows Phone? Heck no. I don’t care if it’s a good product. It’s got the name “windows” in it.
I don’t think Microsoft realizes what a tainted brand they have in “windows”.
I don’t think Jolla wants to deal with that again
Except has Jolla actually got anywhere? It are done by the same team that failed to deliver a Nokia mobile OS based on Linux.
Edited 2013-04-18 20:12 UTC
They got to where they planned up until now, and didn’t slip behind any schedules so far, and are working on what’s left before the release. So they are good. I’m sure they are fed up with Nokia and have no interest to deal with it again.
Their team didn’t fail – they were a great success. Nokia failed use that success, and they have no use for Nokia now.
Edited 2013-04-18 21:13 UTC
What targets are these exactly?
Why do you think they are fed up with Nokia?
Their Team did fail otherwise the product would be out now instead of Nokia using Windows Phone.
You can’t put everything on management … there must of been a lack of buy-in from management and that is a failure of employees.
TBH unless you had a bird’s eye view of Nokia and how it was working whatever you say is probably total bullshit in regards to what was going on and what failed and to why.
Edited 2013-04-18 21:17 UTC
They are announcing the first device in May:
http://www.taloussanomat.fi/porssi/2013/04/16/vain-pari-viikkoa-ja-…
Totally unconvincing. Nokia is using Windows Phone because MS gave a few billions to key people there, who cared about filling the pockets in short term, and didn’t care about company success long term. They didn’t abandon Meego because of any lack of technical merits. Of course they’ll never explicitly tell you their motives.
Edited 2013-04-18 21:27 UTC
So a failed team haven’t released anything yet
Except they are making profit and growing sales slowly which is better than what Jolla have accomplished so far .. which is not releasing anything.
Jolla team had years to actually make something and didn’t do anything until they left Nokia and then try to make Android Compatibility a big thing … might as well buy Android then!
Try again.
Edited 2013-04-18 21:32 UTC
Did you release anything yet? Or did you plan it? You didn’t release and didn’t plan. Did you fail? By your logic yes – you didn’t release anything. Right? Wrong, since you didn’t even plan. Jolla planned, and are implementing the plan accordingly. So you can’t say whether they failed at all. Whether they’ll succeed after the release – time will tell.
They aren’t making “something”, they are making quality products. And how could they have years, if it’s a recent startup? Straighten up your facts first.
Edited 2013-04-18 21:36 UTC
Yes I work for a large gambling company in the UK and I have been numerous releases of the Content Management System. I actually know a thing or two about release management which is a science in itself.
Anyway what has it got to do with me whether they have released or not? ad hominem attack … really f–king weak.
At the end of the day until Jolla isn’t released, it isn’t a proven product and therefore won’t be picked up by a manufacturer.
You can talk about planning and their vision and all the rest … it isn’t released yet.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/12/version-1-sucks-but-ship-i…
When they get to version 1 I will take notice.
I am awaiting your reply … which is probably a load of bullshit.
Edited 2013-04-18 21:56 UTC
You started trolling about them releasing anything and being a failure, but you can talk about failure or success only after their release plays out. Before that – it’s completely pointless.
Apparently trolling is disagreeing with you.
It is because Jolla haven’t released anything. If they don’t release anything then they don’t have a product … this is like pretty much fact.
Then you made it out that I haven’t released anything. I have worked for 4 companies that have released various versions of their software. I have worked through the night to release things on time.
I don’t think you really know anything about release cycles, release management etc etc etc.
I just think you are a very weak and predictable troll.
Edited 2013-04-18 22:01 UTC
Wrong. You can download the OS and SDK.
Is it actually on any phones that are released?
If not then shut it.
Any f–king idiot can release an SDK, it isn’t an achievement or a measure of commercial sucess.
Edited 2013-04-18 22:35 UTC
Stop trolling, buddy.
“Any fucking idiot” can release an operating system and an SDK?
That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard, and that’s saying a lot, since I’ve read more of your comments. Stop embarrassing yourself.
Yes anyone can release an SDK and an OS.
Have a look at the number of Ubuntu Respins. Lunduke reckons he’s got an SDK.
Releasing something something these days != technical merit.
Edited 2013-04-19 08:17 UTC
I think the point here is that:
Jolla is held up as a measure of what Nokia should be doing, despite the fact that they haven’t achieved a fraction of what Nokia has achieved.
Nokia changed strategies and had a phone out in 10 months executing on that strategy, then released 13 phones in the year that followed, and increased their volumes of said devices by 500% YoY.
Nokia has set up:
1. An Ad exchange network with highest bidder CPM across multiple publishers world wide.
2. A premium developer program meant to incentivize the development of quality apps. This is different than Microsoft’s cash for apps that people complain about.
3. An entire suite of mapping solutions for ALL Windows Phones and a mapping solution on iOS
4. A subscription music streaming service which is cheaper than most others.
5. Developer hackathons, start up accelerators, and start up grants (AppCampus)
6. A vast retail and marketing presence in Europe
7. Brought many platform exclusives to Windows Phone.
8. Had the most insane developer outreach which has only intensified
9. Carrier billing in various markets for Windows Phone
10. Other things that don’t come to mind.
11. Deals with app component vendors to bundle them for developers at dirt cheap prices, advertising and marketing material support.
Jolla has done a very, very, very small fraction of those things in around the same time frame. This is I think what lucas_maximus’s overall point was.
Why is Jolla cheered for essentially no progress comparatively, when they haven’t proven themselves in the market yet. Let them release, let’s see how they work through their own special issues before we compare Nokia to them or desire Nokia to be like them.
Nokia has been one of the most agile companies this past year, when viewed objectively and not through Nokia hater glasses.
Apparently trolling is asking “did they release anything” about their work in progress which is scheduled only to be announcing the product next month, and releasing it later this year. That’s trolling, and you knew you were trolling.
For those with reading comprehension problems, I can repeat – you can’t measure a failure of the product that’s in development, until it’s released. You can measure the success or failure of keeping the milestones of the development (which are kept by them), but you didn’t even try to ask about that. You were trolling about the product failure.
Edited 2013-04-18 23:07 UTC
Re-define success</sarcasm>
I am still waiting for a decent answer …
Wtf? Work on any project of a reasonable size. Say some bullshit like that and you will likely be pink slipped before noon.
You project is a failure until you release it. This is why you work so hard to get it out of the door.
It isn’t unfair to criticize Jolla for moving rather slowly. How long do you think their slim window of opportunity in emerging markets will last?
Take you trolling elsewhere. We had one troll here already, no need for two.
Like lucas, I’m also waiting for an answer. Stop playing the troll card, man up, and defend your positions.
Well it’s more than a product decision that they made, Microsoft bailed them out in exchange for using WP.
But I agree that it was a poorly chosen name. Most people probably assume that a “windows phone” requires anti-malware software and additional maintenance. You can’t assume the public will learn about how Win32 malware doesn’t work on WP anymore than Android. Heck I’ve even seen comments from Slashdotters that didn’t understand the difference.
Microsoft has made too many mistakes with Windows 8 and WP but they were warned in the development blogs so they really have it coming. When deleting technical questions from Microsoft partners became a daily routine they probably should have re-thought their strategy.
Take another gander at the chart that Thom provided. Symbian was the #1 selling smartphone platform _and_ Symbian growth was still continuing right up until Elop released the “Burning Platform” memo.
“Bailed them out?” More like tied a 2 ton anchor to the mast and threw it overboard, then shot the hull so full of holes it looked like a colander.
Yes it is …you’d hire back the team that was under-performing for so many years, delay after delay.
Android still has more enterprise features than WP and I still can’t believe that WP will not sync contacts via USB with Outlook.
Microsoft has failed trying to chase the Apple crowd with Win8 and WP.
Perhaps there is hope that Ballmer will pull his head out of his ass and start listening to the customers. But as with NuMicrosoft the safe assumption is that they will do the opposite of common sense and incite even more anger. Ballmer is obsessed with getting even with Apple when the real threat to Microsoft’s profits has long been him.
… vive le Sailfish!!!
The real issue, for me, is :
“Is Stephen Elop just a Bad CEO, which, in good faith, destroyed the company he was in charge of ?”
OR
“Is Stephen Elop still a Microsoft minion, having the mission to destroy the Nokia Ecosystem to make room for Windows, and then use the remaining strength of the controlled company for the sole benefit of its real employer, while sacrificing the best interest of his pretended company?”
And an associated question :
Is there a penalty for any CEO proved to be in the second category ?
I don’t know about ‘Bad’, per-se, but he was certainly a green one. He was correct in identifying the sub-surface problems within Nokia – outwardly still successful but inwardly riding on its past laurels with no strong strategy for the future – and wanting to turn that million-ton tanker well before the still distant rocks were upon it.
I suspect Elop fancied himself as the next Steve Jobs stepping into the wildly dysfunctional not-dead-but-give-it-time mid-90s Apple. The crucial difference was, Jobs already had 20 years to make his mistakes and learn from them so knew how to hit the ground running. Whereas Elop, being inexperienced, immediately forgot all his Business 101 Theory and pulled an Adam Osborne instead, the twit.
The damage done, the only question now is: was it a one-time aberration which he’ll ultimately make right for both his own and Nokia’s sakes? Or was his promotion to CEO just another demonstration of big business’s common Peter Principle in action? Time will tell.
I do wish the anti-MS types would stop with this ridiculous paranoid gibber, or at least take it to an appropriate loonyhole like InfoWars or PrisonPlanet where it belongs, i.e. as far away as possible from the reality-based rest of us. Or at least try to engage your Logic 101 brain circuits before you flap your mouth.
First, a crippled Nokia does Microsoft nothing but harm too, making Win8 appear a toxic destroyer of any vendor that touches it.
[Yes, I realize the anti-MS contingent loves to claim that’s precisely what Win8 is, but I don’t think anyone’s fooled for a moment that theirs is an intellectually honest assessment. There’s plenty solid objective criticisms to make of MS culture, behavior and products, so objectively tearing into those instead of making shit up would do wonders for the signal-to-noise here.]
Second, as Nokia CEO, Elop works for Nokia and is answerable to its board and shareholders:
1. They are the ones paying his salary. (See: the Golden Rule.)
2. His professional reputation and future employability rests entirely on his current performance. If his stewardship destroys Nokia, he’ll be lucky to run so much as a fast-food joint afterward.
3. He is legally answerable to shareholders should he deliberately acting against the company’s best interest. If they find out he’s working for anyone else, they’ll not only kick him out of the job but sue him as an individual into a hole so deep he’ll never get out. And that’s before any regulatory or criminal justice folks start taking an interest too.
..
Basically, Elop was handed the keys to the priceless family Rolls Royce, and you’re saying his first action is to drive it down to the local chop shop for a $50 backhander? Only a complete crackhead would behave so, and no competent parent would ever hand the family fortune to such a loser crackhead son. I suspect only basement dwelling losers who’ve never run their own business nor taken on any other IRL responsibility could honestly propose anything so patently stupid. Really, look in a mirror before you say such things about other people; you might stop yourself looking a complete fool in future.
the race is on to see which company dies, in its current form, first. nokia or blackberry
I was a Nokia fan once. They had me… they lost me. I liked my 5800 and defended it against the (quite succesfull) attacks by htc hero in my surroundings. I wanted my next phone(s) to be a Nokia. I liked there feel of thoughness, handling and sound quality, heck i still miss it. But I also want an android phone (for all the obvious and none obvious reasons).
Maybe Nokia wouldn’t be the number one but they still would be in much less problems if they had had a android phone offering. I don’t believe the identity theorie that motived windows above android/symbian/x choice. Nokia could have won the phone battles easily. I even think they still can: Imagine an handsome watertight phone with pureview in radiant colours..with android. I want one.
I am curious how others would picture there ideal Nokia phone…….
N950 (qwerty N9 with slider) with pureview, an abnormal long battery-life and robust like there $25 S40.
Edited 2013-04-21 13:50 UTC