Nokia cuts market share targets as Q2 profits plummet
By Thomas Ricker 
posted July 16th 2009 6:53AM
posted July 16th 2009 6:53AM
posted July 16th 2009 6:53AM
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Uh... Nokia's smartphone share actually increased in Q2 to 41%.
The smartphone market is the one the iPhone competes against Nokia in.
Was there anything else?
Engadget doesn't have a "Nokia doing well" graphic ready so I'm afraid that I have to report all Nokia news in a negative light. Sorry.
Ah, I see. And there was me just thinking it was piss poor and irresponsible reporting.
personally, i like android and think it's the way to go.
the iphone to me is actually more of the same rather than a revolution, it's just shinier; more lock-in, static OS, closed source, closed everything, tight controls.
android is the real mobile revolution.
I agree. The new HTC Hero looks the most interesting phone on the market since the first iPhone.
The Hero really does look like a serious iPhone beater, as does Sense UI. I'm looking forward to it a lot.
I'm not surprised. I played around with my neighbors S60 5th Ed phone and that settled it for me: I bought an iPhone 3GS instead of the N97.
S60 is like Internet Explorer. They are both horrible relative to their competitors, but they hold the largest market share.
Wow, perfect analogy. And I'd like to add they're both on the way out.
Judging by this comment section, Nokia fanboys are much quieter and more passive aggressive than most other types. :-)
I wouldn't describe myself as a Nokia fanboy - you'll note I describe the N97 as a mis-step (mainly because it's an anachronism in the current top end market) - but I do use Nokia phones.
The issue here is that all the other companies who are aggressively entering or re-entering the high end market like Apple, Palm, HTC and others are going to eat into Nokia's bottom line and, frankly, Nokia have been ill prepared for this. I've long been a critic of Nokia's speed to market and awareness of trends and their entry into consumer smartphones has clearly been a rush job.
That said, they still make an enormous rang of excellent phones, still dominate the smart, feature and dumbphone sectors and do have a habit of pushing into the lead when they eventually do get their heads together. I expect, for example, if the touchscreen craze continues that they will release capacitive screen equipped units with top notch UIs. In the meantime the goal was obviously to establish a foothold in the market which the 5800 clearly has.
The annoying thing here is the usual ill informed, biased, sub-standard piece of journalism we've come to expect from certain members of the Engadget team. I mean it's just so predictable - we know there's a bigger market but the big N aren't going away for a long, long time and we know there are better in class phones than some of Nokia's offerings but these results represent a positive step for Nokia. They've plugged a lot of the holes, they realise the market has changed and they're taking action. It's game on now and that's got to be good for every gadget fan who wants the best toys availabel because without competition and pressure that just won't happen.
But it's easier just to pen a quick hatchet job, isn't it?
"I expect, for example, if the touchscreen craze continues that they will release capacitive screen equipped units with top notch UIs." - Mark Anderson
Touchscreens are a "craze?" Seriously?
Perhaps Nokia is making the same blunder as you: misinterpreting technological evolution as mere fads, holding back, and watching the rest of the world leave them behind. And sometimes you just can't catch up...
There's been toucscreen phones for about 7 years now. Sony Ericsson P800 was announced in september 2002, and there probably are even earlier examples that just happened to be the first I remembered. Takes abit time for craze to gather steam and tere's no way to know how long it's going to stay.
Time will tell how the popularity of touchscreen phones stays or will it be like the clamshell design, for a while very popular and a craze, these days not so much. And if clamshell dont ring a bell there was the superthin craze for a while too.
I almost bought an N97 but ironically a delay in the release date meant I bought a G1 to tide me over... now I wouldn't have an N97 for free.... I know Nokia has heavily invested in the whole Symbian thing but I think they really have to stop throwing good money after bad, S60's had it's day so unless there's something new and innovative in the works and coming VERY soon I think they should take a long hard look at Android. The specs of the N97 aren't all that bad, all (!) it needs is a more powerful processor, a capacitive screen combined with a decent OS....
I own the N97 and its truly a not so great device... Will wait for a good Android qwerty though before I get rid of it.
alright its a bit shitty device...
The two cents of an amateur analyst:
1. It's not about the hardware, its about the OS. This trend will get stronger and stronger, and in this field Symbian is the most outdated by far.
2. Want to take over smartphone market? NOT WITH A RESISTIVE TOUCHSCREEN NOKIA!!!
3. To the Nokia advocates: N97 is the response to high end smartphones, and it fails in almost every aspect that shapes today's smartphone market.
There, draw your conclusions.
Dumbo, the most outdated is SE by far. Symbian s60v5 is a pass-over OS. It will be upgraded pretty soon and will be more stunning than OSX mobile and android combined. Saw the previews already at the Nokia Tech lab, and seriously as much as I love iPhone, it'll be a failure compared to the new symbian platform.
S60 for me is the only solution for me as I crave smartphones with a high mp cam great video recording and are generally multimedia monsters, which is why I bought a samsung i8910!! nokia has been rehashing the N95 for ages now, time to get a move on don't you think?
anyway, when android starts getting the same hardware ( SE RACHAEL+OLED+FLASH+HIGH RES SCREEN+HD RECORDING) I'll heartily switch over
S60 is just horrible. I would have bought the N97 if it had either winMo or Android.
Nokia needs to look away from Symbian.
That's what happens when you provide a country with the methods to track and record every conversation made from a Nokia or Siemens cell phone. People don't like to be spied on. In Soviet Russia the citizens spy on you!!!
link please.
Plus I don't see how this is not possible with any phone to begin with.
people actually went out and bought G1's... whoaaa, thats like going out and buying a lada to take your ugly sister out on a date...
If a G1 is like taking an ugly sister out on a date, than the latest and greatest from Nokia, is like taking your obese and mentally challenged inbred cousin out on the town.
Nokia needs to get rid of Symbian, bottom line, and start producing Android driven phones.
It might not be a looker, but it's the greatest phone I've ever used.
That includes the iPhone btw.
I have a G1 it is ugly , but, its functional for the most part. I can deal with the horrible battery life, and ugly phone , plus a bad camera, but, that stuff aside, everything else is wonderful which is why I'm enjoying it.
The netbook is the only thing on the immediate horizon?!
Seriously, anyone ever hear of this thing called N900? Basically an N97 with WVGA screen and Maemo 5 instead of S60... oh, and an OMAP 3, of course. You'd think with that probably arriving sooner than the netbooks, and definitely more capable of correcting the N97 misstep, it might have been mentioned?
I really don´t understand the hype around touch devices, especially capacitive; You can´t operate it blindly and you dirty your screen operating it, I have an iPod touch and had to watch a fingerprinted movie just because I have to start it by touching the screen
Oh dear ****. I'm seriously starting to wonder if I should go somewhere else for my tech news, someone start a smart, european version of engadget please?
@Thomas Ricker, a couple of points, which are also interesting (besides the 66% profit drop):
- Nokia Ovi active users are now 46 million (Ovi Store, Maps etc.)
- smartphone sales are up 23% compared to Q1
- Nokia 5800 sold 7 million is 7 months. That's an estimated 12 million in 12 months
- sales, marketshare and smartphone marketshare all increased compared to Q1
- Ovi user numbers collected in 10 months and expected to surpass Facebook active user numbers in about 14 months time. It is also about 10x of the estimated MobileMe user numbers (started the same time).
Engadget get your facts right :
Nokia have just announced their Q2 financial report. The numbers are showing sings of recovering from the shock of the recession - their operating profit went up by almost 51% and their estimated market share increased a percent to 38%. The total number of phones they shipped was just over 103.2 million, a healthy improvement over the 93.2 million the previous quarter.
*tosses N97 on desk*
Nokia needs to lose Symbian OS. Nokia also needs to stop making phones with the same exact designs as the previous versions. They are going down with Moto. Samsung, LG, HTC, and Apple are ready to take their place.
......um, I'm sorry, correct me if I'm wrong here, but they are still making a profit, right? Yes, that's what I thought. Apparently we can't add up numbers around here, only fruit. Yay for impartiality Engadget....get your S$%! together!
I bought a Nokia phone last year, and it was the worst phone I've ever owned. It was EXTREMELY SLOW, the graphic menu was very low res, and the phone itself felt like a cheap piece of plastic. Never again will I own a Nokia phone. I'm sure other consumers have caught on as well.
Which one and how much did you pay for it?
I'll stick with Samsung, BlackBerry, or the IPhone. They seem to get it right every time.
Because Symbian looks and feels ancient by comparison and Nokia still charges a premium for their phones. They are only king of the hill by momentum and won't be for long if they keep things up.
This comes from just cranking out handsets , without careing about the firmware and software. Also the OVI store is horrible, its a piss poor excuse for an app store.
If I was in charge of nokia, my priorities would be not making as many handsets, and focusing more on the ones I that have been released.
Im getting rid of my E71, I love the phone but now when people call it just freezes, im sure a firmware update could fix it, but it will never happen. It took them almost a year to do 1 firmware update to fix the purple tinted camera.
On top of that, the apps are horrible, sure you can search the net and download random files for it , and its useable with opera mini, gmail, and youtube, and google maps. But thats about it.
I switched to an android phone and in 1 day I have more apps and games than I could ever put on my nokia and its useful stuff. Unlike the garbage thats on the ovi store.
Nokia is not being a serious company anymore
Ovi store is horrible?
Let me check...
Nope, piss easy - a good number of apps, carrier billing, simple download and install.
Easy enough to me.
ovi store is really horrible. I tried it first week than gave it another month tried again and I still don't see anything of interest. I have most of the apps on my phone already. the best apps for nokia are not even on the ovi store.
Yes Haytham OVI store sucks balls. I downloaded that app and it sucks balls. I used it on my 5800 and it is a POS.
i have a nokia user for the past 8 years at least. I have used E and N series. I dont think the N97 offers anything more than what the N95 offered. Its an updated and polished N95. I am also jumping off the nokia wagon. HTC hero is looking good
I had an N95, its a good phone , to bad they can't just make it with a slide out qwerty keypad and a little thinner/faster I would still be happy enough. I still admit has one of the best cell cams I have personally used, and the videos from it come out very well. You can't even tell they were shot with a cell phone.
But imagine what hardware like that could be like, if it had decent software? really nice
Wow, I'm new to endgadget, and I thought this website was incredible and unbiased. What foolishing thinking. But I guess this place got douches too that literally go out of their way to bash a company for no apparent reason on their front page news.
Nokia is just extremely out of touch in the software department with what users want/need. The hardware is fine, give those guys a raise, take the software and firmware department, plus marketing and fire them
Also that nokia beta blog? fire that whole group, they are wasting money designing stupid apps that no one uses or needs. Not 1 app from them worth while
I have had an N97 since it launched in the UK. It is truly the worst Nokia handset I've owned.. and I've owned a few firsts (7110, 7650, 7710 were all firsts of their kinds)
I've been waiting over 2 weeks for a firmware update that was made available in NAM and Asia on the 1st. In the UK, Nokia have made the new firmware available for the black handset, but not the white one..
Really.. Seriously Nokia, there is a difference between the two handsets that requires a completely DIFFERENT firmware.
This is what's wrong with Nokia. If I had to produce 100 different firmwares for one type of handset, I don't think I could expect much.. How many different firmware versions are there for the iphone 3gs? Can I count them all on one finger?
I don't understand how, for example, they can produce a handset that fails to receive SMS text messages. Why did they break this feature in this brand new handset? Even if they fixed the bugs so it worked perfectly, it would offer NOTHING more than every other S60 phone they produce? It would be like microsoft releasing a beta of Windows 7 that is horribly buggy and has next to NO new features! If symbian is this easy to get wrong, the symbian foundation should be closed and everyone go home
Nokia are pissing off customers (who've spent much cash) and failing to impress reviewers.. I've loved every Nokia I've owned up until the N97, now I would have to really consider very hard whether I'd buy another one.. Their market share needs to suffer.. Hurt them in the profit then maybe they'll try that bit harder.. or do us all a favour and pull out of the smartphone market and just make $4.99 S40 handsets and leave the "real" phones to the innovators..
And I thought I was a fanboi.. what a tragic shame
it's no doubt phone makers who are less innovative software-wise is going to lose.