Nokia today released its 3rd quarter results for 2008. Converged mobile device shipments (S60 phones) were 15.5 million (down from 16 million in Q3 2007) including 9 million Nseries and 3 million Eseries devices. Sales and profit were down, but the gross margin in the device and services division increased (36.5% from 36.1%). Nokia's market share fell to 38%, from 39% last year and 40% last quarter.
Read on in the full article.
Any day now this article will hit all the Apple Fanboy Nazi sites. They will laugh and scream with glee how Nokia is down but they will fail to realize that no matter what, Nokia sells more phones in a week than Apple sells in a quarter. GLOBALLY. So it is still no contest.
As an iPhone users (wanting to dump it as soon as possible), I truly hope that Nokia drops a bomb with the coming N-Series touch screen phone. With that, I hope the developers get their collective heads out of their asses and lower the prices on some of their apps.
That XPress Music touch screen thing from Nokia is a piece of crap (at least from the point of view of app development) so I don't think that Nokia will be able to deliver any decent touch screen phone in the foreseeable future.
As a developer, I would like to lower our prices but Handango (virtually the only store that matters for S60) takes more than 50% of our revenue. And they don't sell to much (partly because the S60 app installation is extremely user hostile). The same app on the App Store is flying. That's why we can sell it for 1/5 price of the S60 version.
The figures will go up again once the N85 and 5800 XM hits the street.
These will probably more popular than the N95.
Well, I'm buying both...
@2nd unregistered:
Hello, I'm a developer too! (a very experienced one I might add). And I think you're talking absolute rubbish. The "XPress Music touch screen thing" (You mean the 5800) is not in the least bit crap. Not for app development, nor for anything else.
Those developers with real skill, ability and knowledge find S60 a great platform to work with. Criticisms? Sure. iPhone easier to develop for? Sure. AppStore easier to make money from for the number of iPhone users out there? Sure. But these do not make S60, or the 5800, crap. If you want to call Nokia Download! crap, I'd agree with you there though.
>"partly because the S60 app installation is extremely user hostile"
Sounds like a bit of bitterness coming out there. Sorry to hear it. Most people (ordinary users) find S60 app installation no problem.
Good luck on the iPhone by the way. Me? I'll stick with a userbase heading for 250 million (Symbian), thanks very much.
"Those developers with real skill, ability and knowledge find S60 a great platform to work with."
You are the only person in the whole known universe who thinks this.
"Most people (ordinary users) find S60 app installation no problem."
Most people don't install software to their S60 partly because they've never heard that it's even possible and the process is difficult. Go to your mom or dad and ask her/him to install your very own software to your S60 and measure the time.
"Good luck on the iPhone by the way. Me? I'll stick with a userbase heading for 250 million (Symbian), thanks very much."
It's not about the iPhone. BlackBerry apps easily outsells S60 as well. Check Handango Yardstick. S60 is nowhere and Nokia should do something about it. Good luck!
@ both unregistereds
Having programmed for both platforms, I would say that iPhone OS is a bit easier to program for. It certainly is not without its problems, though, some of which are quite serious and are hampering development speed too.
That said, as a commercial developer, I am more concerned about the amount of revenue that can be generated. Apple sells less phones than Nokia, but most of Nokia's phones are not Symbian OS based, and are therefore irrelevant for a discussion about software sales. The comparison should be between the number of S60 phones against the number of iPhones and iPod Touches being sold. Neither of these numbers are known, as Nokia only reports they Nseries and Eseries sales figures, and Apple only reports their iPhone sales figures. Further, we should only count S60 3rd and 5th ed. devices as the ones being in the market. S60 1st/2nd edition is really a separate market, because sis files for one cannot be installed on the other system.
Guestimating, I would say that there are at most 100 million S60 3rd ed smartphones around, and at least 10 million iPhones.
@ the last 2 unregistereds 😊
> You are the only person in the whole known universe who thinks this.
How did you manage to find the time to survey 6.6 billion people on the planet? I love it when people support their arguments with hard, factual data 😉
> Check Handango Yardstick
Well known as the ONLY place that anyone could possibly download software from 😉
Incidentally, Handango are widely derided for ripping off developers with their greedy revenue share, also for their US-centric focus (they are mainly American, and Nokia/S60/Symbian are not strong in America, so that would explain their results, and your luck of success - you chose the wrong portal my friend 😊 )
> most of Nokia's phones are not Symbian OS based, and are therefore irrelevant for a discussion about software sales
Most cats and dogs don't run Symbian either 😊 No one was discussing other Nokia phones - only you 😉
@above unregistered: .SIS files being incompatible between Symbian versions is irrelevant and a blatant attempt by you to reduce numbers for comparison. We're comparing platforms. Lots of iPhone apps only work on jailbroken iPhones....poor argument. And your 100 million figure is from thin air. My "heading for 250 million" figure is extrapolated from Symbian's reported 226 million at end of June 08. So, let's be honest about numbers shall we? 😊
"How did you manage to find the time to survey 6.6 billion people on the planet? I love it when people support their arguments with hard, factual data 😉"
Your original comment "developers with real skill, ability and knowledge find S60 a great platform to work with" was as factual as mine. 1:1
I don't really care about Nokia and Apple sales figures. I care about our sales figures. And the fact is that our BlackBerry and iPhone sales are flying, our S60 sales are marginal. I'm talking about the very same application. Our apps also available on Nokia Softwaremarket as well but it doesn't perform very well. The app is UIQ 2008 award winner and Handango people's choice award winner, we tried everything but it doesn't change the figures much.
Side note: A few years ago the P800/P900/P910 version of our app was a huge hit we sold almost as many licenses as the App Store now. Not the Nokia's 250 million units that matters but the kind of people who buy that particular phone.