Nokia Becomes The Fourth Largest Smartphone Brand in USA in Q3 2013

http://www.counterpointresearch.com/nokia-becomes-the-fourth-largest-smartphone-brand-in-usa-in-q3-2013

by sker • 13 years ago

92 60 13 years ago

usaphp• 13 years ago

I am very glad to see how the company which I love and follow for so many years is getting more and more share in the US market. The best thing I like about Nokia is how they are obsessed with quality of their products, I think in terms of build quality and design, Nokia is the only smartphone/tablet maker at this time to be a real competitor to Apple.

sker3• 13 years ago

Yes, Nokia is the only company that gives me hardware envy. I've been wanting to run Android on one of those gorgeous Lumias for a long time. I've never felt like running Android on an iPhone.

Maybe if they reach 10%+ someone will take the trouble of hacking Android into one of their phones.

kgabis• 13 years ago

What's wrong with WP?

MehdiEG• 13 years ago

It's already been done. Get yourself an N9 (same hardware as the lumia 800) or an N950 (most beautiful phone hardware I've ever had the chance to use but hard to come by as only a few thousand units were produced) and install nitdroid.

The problem is that the OS and hardware really go hand in hand. Installing a completely different OS than the one the hardware was designed for often results in a disappointing device. The N950 running Meego for example is still to this day what I would consider the pinnacle of hardware and software engineering when it comes to smartphones. It looks gorgeous, it feels amazing - no other smartphone I've ever used (and I've used many) comes close.

But install Android on it and it suddenly looks and feels like an unsightly brick. The way android looks like, the UI gestures, the way Android is meant to be used in general is different than Meego and it doesn't fit the hardware at all. It's loads of subtle and seemingly small details but the end result is a very unpleasant device.

Geee2• 13 years ago

Too bad it's now just Microsoft and they'll drop the Nokia name too. Microsoft has Lumia and Asha brands and they can use Nokia brand just for dumb phones. Quite intriguing is that neither Nokia or Microsoft has the right to use Nokia name in smartphones until 2016, when Nokia is freed again to release phones with it's own brand.

kmfrk• 13 years ago

And Stephen Elop might very well be the new CEO of Microsoft.

dolphenstein• 13 years ago

It's only Nokia by name going forward. The name will likely be killed off once MS completes it's assimilation in to the collective.

sudomal2• 13 years ago

And real Nokia might return to the smartphone business when the MS exclusivity expires.

rbanffy3• 13 years ago

Sounds impressive until you realize they're #4 with 4% market share.

outside12342• 13 years ago

in the US. In Italy, the Nokia line is outselling the iPhone.

oscargrouch2• 13 years ago

Also in Brazil, everything Apple is VERY-VERY expensive, because of the taxation system.. so the market share for Androids and Nokia are bigger

rbanffy3• 13 years ago

I Brazil, at least, Nokias are being heavily subsidized. Not only to the carriers, but salespeople are getting commissions straight from Nokia in order to push as many as they can.

Apple, Samsung and LG are not doing this.

sz4kerto• 13 years ago

That's how you start in a market already dominated by competitors.

Just as a comparison, only Apple managed to sustain ~5% market share on the PC market since MS has dominated it. Entering the mobile market is very similar in difficulty to entering the desktop segment with a new OS.

AnthonyMouse• 13 years ago

The problem is that Apple still has a single digit or low double digit percentage of the PC market. And the only reason they can make it work developing their own ecosystem at that level of market penetration is by being a premium brand with high margins. Nokia's market share is currently at the opposite end of the market. Which is bad news for attracting developers, because developers won't want to target a small minority platform full of budget-conscious customers.

outside12342• 13 years ago

Nokia is going to make the turn, against all the odds. This is really promising news for having a 3 platform horserace to keep things honest.

Nux• 13 years ago

What are you smoking, dude? There's no more Nokia to make the turn. Their entire phone section now belongs to Microsoft.

devx• 13 years ago

It's too bad they didn't continue things with Meego. I would've preferred another open source OS to be the 3rd platform instead of another closed source one.

Windows Phone owes the vast majority of its success to Nokia anyway, because most of the early adopters bought Nokia phones because of the hardware and despite Windows Phone, which is why Nokia has like 90 percent market share of the WP market.

If this wasn't the case, the market would've been more decentralized. You could also test the theory another way - if Nokia would've quit WP for Android this year (if Microsoft wouldn't have bought them), Windows Phone would be dead almost immediately.

Plus, Nokia's phones actually looked nicer with Meego:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/06/nokia-...

http://cdn.theunlockr.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Android...

freehunter• 13 years ago

That looks almost exactly like Windows Phone with an iPhone or Android style apple launcher.

Geee2• 13 years ago

Well the UI is much more than a launcher. The N9 / MeeGo had the most redefined and brilliantly designed user interface on smartphones, both visually and functionally. Miles ahead of current-gen Android, for example. IMO It's the only interface that had the same 'magic' of iOS through simplicity, yet it was way more powerful. Here's couple of nice animated examples to get a glimpse of it:

http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/docs/ux/pages/PB_Opening_and_... http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/docs/ux/pages/PB_Backstack_an...

killme• 13 years ago

That looks like yet another icon based UI [1]. Not sure what I am missing, but almost all mobile OSes except WP seem to be based off [1].

[1] http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_PROGMAN.GI...

Pxtl3• 13 years ago

Honeslty, Windows Phone's UI is a neat concept and very modern and stylish, but I've been using a WP7 phone for over two years now and I have to say - the silhouette icon approach sucks.

Merging icons and widgets? Brillian, Google should've though of that. Simple, modern, flat styling? Fantastic. Monochrome 2-color icons? Do not want.

Brakenshire2• 13 years ago

It's too bad they didn't continue things with Meego. I would've preferred another open source OS to be the 3rd platform instead of another closed source one.

I really don't want to come across as a shill (I've just made two concurrent posts about this), but have you heard of Sailfish/Jolla? They're basically ex-Nokia engineers trying to reboot Meego/N9-era Nokia smartphones.

programminggeek• 13 years ago

This is all because of the Lumia 520, which is really driving Nokia's sales. There is a good space at the low end of the smartphone market and with people moving towards prepaid or no-contract in the US, a cheap off contract smartphone like the 520 is a really winner.

This is also good because Nokia is like 80+% of Windows Phone sales, so that means Windows Phone is creeping upward against Android (for better or worse)

300bps• 13 years ago

Based on world smartphone sales it looks like it could be just as easily taking market share from Apple:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/31/strategy-analytics-q3-201...

Anyway, I love my Lumia 928. After having 3 iPhones it's the best phone I've ever had.

Steko• 13 years ago

"Based on world smartphone sales it looks like it could be just as easily taking market share from Apple"

Except we're talking about the US where Apple didn't lose marketshare.

Since Nokia's successful models are at a price point where Apple doesn't even have an offering Occam's razor suggests they are taking share from Android.

Tarrosion• 13 years ago

The 520 really is a fantastic phone for its price point. Less than $100 no contract, and for 99% of daily activities I find it to be as good as or better than my friends' iPhones and Galaxies.

barista3• 13 years ago

then you should check out Lumia 1020. The Camera is just awesome on it.

stuaxo• 13 years ago

Nokia: The U.S. or the rest of the world; pick one.

pessimizer• 13 years ago

But it took that share from Motorola, not the leaders. A better headline would be "Nokia ships more smartphones than Motorola, this quarter."

AnotherDesigner• 13 years ago

When I finally gave up my Wifi+Skype plan for a cell phone with data a while ago, I went with a Nokia phone. It's stylish and affordable and Nokia is known for building things that last. The phone is great. But my feelings for Microsoft haven't improved. Shortly after I purchased the phone, Microsoft announced they wouldn't provide an upgrade path for Windows Phone 7 to 8. Then they announced they would release a mini-update to Windows Phone 7.8 for us that would bring some of the features. I waited six months or so for a tiny update and then they took it away and never released it on my phone. As long as Nokia is running Windows Phone, I will never buy another. And I certainly won't ever buy another Windows Phone anything again after the way they treated their users. I feel like my phone is running a beta version of Windows Phone and will never get updated to the real thing.

IOException• 13 years ago

Just got Nokia 520 last week as a throwaway phone (while I wait for 5s). I must say its great phone with windows phone 8 looking very polished and useful - only problem MS-Nokia has is quality and number of apps - hopefully they will be able to reach tipping point soon.

For 80$, no contract this is great deal going on now.

pawn• 13 years ago

I just recently got a Nokia 1020 and I love the camera so much. People keep asking "so does it REALLY have that good of a camera?" My favorite thing to do is to take a random picture while they watch, and then zoom way in on some text that's unreadable to their eyes, or zoom in on someone's skin pores.

smegel• 13 years ago

This is more about the fall of once strong companies like HTC than Nokia's rise...and the eternal dominance of Apple and Samsung.

cpprototypes• 13 years ago

Competition is good but for app development it's becoming too much. Android and iOS and WP and maybe Firefox OS? Who can handle developing four versions of an app? There's been a lot of debate on native vs web based on performance. But web may become the only reasonable way to release an app on all platforms.

BadassFractal• 13 years ago

It's probably not as big of a deal as you think. If you're piloting an app, you're probably going to stick to just Android for rapid development or perhaps iOS for the larger market share in certain categories. Eventually if you get big enough to justify supporting multiple platforms, you should be able to get enough staff to support them all individually.

If you're building for all platforms with no indication that your product is of high value, then this might be even beneficial for developer focus on finding product market fit.

gokhan• 13 years ago

Xamarin or competitors might be a good way to handle different platforms for your app.

c1sc0• 13 years ago

If you're using a PaaS like Parse.com then the only thing you'll really be changing between devices is the frontend.

gizmogwai• 13 years ago

This should be true for ANY backend, as long as you don't use a data serialisation mechanism that is really specific to a given language.

nickfox• 13 years ago

real programmers do it natively. :) And if anyone wants an app written on all 3 platforms, feel free to message me.

kronholm• 13 years ago

Thus why cross-platform solutions are having tremendous growth. If web won't win out, it'll certainly be a cross-platform solution in the long run. My money's on web, if performance of those webviews catches up to native.

Joeri• 13 years ago

The performance of the web views doesn't have to catch up, it just needs to be adequate. Just like on the desktop browsers still deliver a much weaker experience than native apps, but almost nobody is releasing new desktop apps anymore.

camus2• 13 years ago

What you want is to give the best user experience, not a generic webview or cross/plateform framework. And to get the best user experience one needs to go native period. There is no debate , web based app performances are low on anything more than a basic CRUD app...

Nokia Becomes The Fourth Largest Smartphone Brand in USA in Q3 2013

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