Gartner may have beaten Canalys to the Q2 smartphone sales figure stories, but there's still plenty of interest in Canalys' version of events. The headline numbers are similar to Gartner's, with Nokia in the lead with 44% of the market, RIM in second place with 21% and Apple in third with 14%. From a platform point of view, Symbian OS powers just over half of all smartphones sold across the world, though this market share was down 8% year on year. RIM and Apple's OS both gained share, with Windows Mobile being the big loser, with its market share almost halving year on year.
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Inevitable dip in Nokia's share, given strong handsets from competitors and just 'OK' handsets from Nokia. This is not rocket science.
However it's not the major calamity for Nokia beyond the short term that some commentators have suggested, with even some professional observers making fools of themselves in seeing it as an 'end is nigh' scenario for Nokia. As for non professional blog commentators, well, they're generally dogmatic platform zealots.
Nokia will bounce back, good and strong. If we're thinking just touch screens, they have both multitouch and capacitive screens coming down the line. So no worries on that front. The 5800 xm has sold extremely well worldwide, in fact is the best selling non-Apple touch device I think? And the leading music player, beating all the iPods. The 5900 xm is an even more attractive bit of kit. And an N97 mini has been spotted in the wild too.
Symbian's future roadmap is immensely strong and encouraging, and sprucing up the S60 UI is not that big a deal. Apple zealots would do well to remember the numerous problems on that platform, and remember that a healthy app store and slick UI are very shaky sole foundations to base platform zealatory on. Symbian is by FAR the best mobile OS in the world, mildly clunky S60 UI sitting on top or not.
The concern is not that Nokia doesn't have a strong flagship product in the market right now.
The concern is Nokia has stopped listening to the fans and has the audacity to tell them, they don't need the feature they are asking for. They did that with 3d hardware, they did that with Xenon and they did it with the processor.
A recent report from Goldman Sachs downgraded Nokia's rating from Buy to Neutral and called its wounds 'Self Inflicted'.
After winning an EISA award for best phone of the year for 3 years in a row with N90, N93 and N95, it hasn't managed to win it for the last two years. Last year it went to Touch Diamond and this year the duckin' Ipoo took it.
Wake up Nokia, end this stupidity with a new flagship New touchscreen Symbian running on an ARM Cortex-A8 sporting a Xenon flash and with a spare 1500maH battery in the pack. I'll buy it. Promise.
A N97 mini! That's the one! Oversized phones are bad news. Can't wait for a mini. And a 5900xm sounds good too, but PLEASE Nokia NO xenon, I repeat, NO xenon, don't listen to the anals, LED is best for most people. Stick with LED for flash for practicality in a phone thanks.
guess who won the EISA award this year?
Finally some regional breakdown of the figures! Confirms what I was guessing by just gut feeling and some earlier hints from Gartner.
Seriously, but some of younger gadget geeks just want the top of the line specs for bragging rights. Sure putting all those uber specs will sell some handsets but it's still niche. Not a lot of people spend that much on a smart phone.
Interesting to see the geographical data. Biggest suprise was how dominant RIM is over there. I expected iPhone and Windows mobile makers to be much closer.
@Unregistered #2 : anals?
Your choice of words tell me you're a somebody not worth my attention. Get an N97 and be content with it. It has an Led.
@Unregistered 4: I completely agree that not everyone buys an all specs phone but you need to realize the marketing strength, that having a product at such a level brings to the company.
In the past whenever you talk about phones available in the market for different market segments, the list would normally start with a nokia at entry level, and end with a Nokia thats king of the hill. Sadly for the last 2 years Nokia hasn't managed to come out with a phone that could be called the best phone in the market. If Nokia wants to remain a market leader in its industry, it needs to continue to live up to that image by creating products like that.
I wonder what the figures will be like next year... I hope they don't go the Sony Ericsson route. Don't listen to your customers and you'll end up with nothing.
@ Hardeep1singh
I could never be content with an N97, it suffers from the form factor bloat that has become unfortunately fashionable recently since the piePhone appeared. A USA led backward step. Imagine how big the N97 would need to be if Nokia had tied to stuff in the HV circuits, and capacitor required for Xenon? Hence the possible GOOD news about and N97 MINI. Note: "mini" = smaller more portable device not required a wheeled airport case to carry it around. No capacitor bulk thank you. No ungreen manufacture and disposal.
Fortunately, Nokia's choice of LED tells me that Nokia don't take your posts seriously and it is not in their interest to pander to the microscopically tiny minority of xenon zealots that squeak on about marginally better pictures in some occasional lighting conditions (the vast majority of pictures are taken without the need to any flash).
If you want xenon then there are any number of cameras that will perform photographically way better than any smartphone available for less than two monthly phone contract payments, featuring xenon flash and 5x optical zoom lenses. Get yourself a digital camera and be content with it.
LOL! Hardeep1Singh got pwned!
Serves him/her right for being so supercilious "not worthy of my attention" arrogance.
Unregistered wrote:Interesting to see the geographical data. Biggest suprise was how dominant RIM is over there. I expected iPhone and Windows mobile makers to be much closer.
Why is RIM a surprise? They are the defacto business and corporate communications device, whereas iPhone is an entertainment-biased platform. Which do you think employers would choose? Windows Mobile has always been out of favour.
Xenon improves the quality of all pics taken in the dark, that's a fact that nobody can just wish it away. Looking at the tough times Nokia is going through, i'm hoping they'd realize their mistakes and get their heads straight.
@unregistered, Pwned?
Get a life. Making two posts in a row doesn't make your point valid. I'm not arrogant and i didn't use the word 'anals'. I'm happy that nokia still doesn't care about the phone size fanatics like you that keep whimpering about the looks of the phone and keep secretly wishing they had a really small one.
Nokia knows s60 doesn't have a future in the high end smartphone market. They are moving to Maemo.
Their first smartphone will be the Nokia N900 Rover to be released this year. Exciting times ahead.
"Symbian's future roadmap is immensely strong and encouraging"
It's a piece of paper. And the Symbian Foundation has no developers. What you omit to mention is that RIM and Apple made 41% of the profits in the smartphone segment with 5% share. How long can Nokia keep pushing out products that are not competitive or profitable?
"and sprucing up the S60 UI is not that big a deal."
So we thought in 2002, as Ewan said in his video review of the N97. It will be 2011 before anything competitive appears. Will Nokia still be using Symbian then?
Hardeep1singh wrote:phone size fanatics like you that keep whimpering about the looks of the phone and keep secretly wishing they had a really small one.
Shouldn't that be: "wish they had a really big one" ?