A recent report from technology research firm, Gartner shows encouraging figures for Nokia in terms of market share and have done enough to quell rumors that the Finnish firm is backing down under the pressure of other companies. While the report showed figures that implied Samsung’s broadening as the world’s largest manufacturer of smartphones it indicated that Nokia’s figures remained flat. This means that while Nokia may not be increasing in numbers it is at least not falling back. This will greatly help the company when it releases devices with the Windows 8 platform.
When the specifics of the company are studied it is evident that Nokia has had reasonable success in the past quarter with low end phones that it targeted at markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The latest range of phones with limited features and low price tags appear to be quite successful according to the numbers. In fact, this could actually offset the company’s decline in other segments of the market. As the fall in marketshare in other segments has been pretty drastic in recent times, Nokia’s profit margins have reduced equally drastically and the company needs to put in serious work to get itself back on track.
The market share figures in this report show only the number of units that are sold to consumers but do not account for the value of each phone. This is good for Nokia as most of its devices sold are low end ones that have a retail price of less than $40. While this is good on one front, it is evident that consumers are prepared to pay extra for smartphones but are not going Nokia’s way. The implication is that despite maintaining a market share, if it has to offer any competition to Samsung or Apple, it is going to have to work some sort of magic with the upcoming Windows 8 devices.
Currently, Apple and Samsung account for more than 50% of the global smartphone market share and are the only companies to have achieved more than 10% market share in the second quarter. For Nokia, the market share for its Symbian phones fell to 6% from 22% and its Windows Phone devices account for barely 3% of the market. For the future, Nokia’s reliance on the cheap market phones is not going to be enough.
