After leading the market for 14 years, Nokia has now been pushed to the second position by Samsung. With 92 million phones being shipped by Samsung in the first quarter, it beat Nokia which managed to ship about 83 million cell phones.
Nokia has been facing problems regarding the sale of their products with shipments going down by 30% since 2007. To add to it, S&P and Fitch’s downgraded ratings came as a rude shock to the company. In 2008, Samsung managed only a third of Nokia’s total market share, but has been on a steady rise.
Nokia is now placed third with respect to sales, with Apple selling around 35 million iPhones in the first quarter. Alongside Apple, Samsung is also making its way to the top with smartphones that are sleek, thin and fast enough to be strong rivals of the iPhone. Samsung fell short by only 2 million smartphones from Apple’s mark.
Samsung’s progress comes as a surprise since until last year it was placed behind Nokia, Apple and BlackBerry. Samsung has now managed to beat Motorola and HTC at leading Google’s Android platform. Samsung has experimented with different techniques, introducing new styles and sizes of devices. A perfect proof of this is the Galaxy Note. According to analysts, the company has been investing in hardware and software research development required for the production of smartphones and this seems to be paying off well for them. Not only are they excelling in the smartphones sector, but they are also introducing cell phones in several other categories simultaneously.
With Samsung introducing the third generation of their Galaxy S lineup in the coming month, the company is expected to make make bigger advancements in market share. Meanwhile, things do not seem to be looking up for Nokia. After having surpassed Motorola in 1998, Nokia has now been trampled. Their shift to Microsoft’s Windows Phone is not going well. While smartphones account for only 14% of Nokia’s total cell phone shipment in the last three months, Samsung stands at 34% in that respect.
With smartphone shipments all over the world expected to rise by 35% this year, other categories of phones, such as feature phones, low-cost phones and entry-level phones may experience a decline in demand.
