Has Nokia bottomed out? El Reg drills into the detail When a company is in crisis, it wants to tell the world that it’s still got oodles of cash and is jolly busy putting things right. This is true even if you're Europe’s biggest technology company - right, Nokia? The phone firm got the bad news out of the way first in its financial results this week. The company is €675m poorer …
In the psychedelic lalaland of Microsoft astroturfers, where everybody lusts after Metro live tiles, certainly Microsoft/Nokia will get a 'grand revival'.
In reality, however, it's more likely that Nokia will be bought by Microsoft for pennies. And Microsoft continues to throw money and lose money in the smartphone/tablet business.
Please wake up, you delusional Microsoft shills.
Have they dumped the lame dog Windows Phone yet? If not, then no, they haven't bottomed out yet...
No amount of spinning SHIPPED numbers of Lumias (when all their other presentations referred to SOLD numbers) can spin the fact that it's flopped REALLY badly, and 4m shipped means 1.5m sold....
Clearly I can't, nobody can. If they could it would bring down Nokia for good.
HOWEVER, anecdotal evidence suggests that stockrooms are crammed with unsold Lumias, and I do know of massive numbers of handsets given away to lots of phone shifters like CarphoneWarehouse and Phones4U, as staff sweeteners.
When Nokia talk of sold numbers through the entire presentation, but then use shipped when it comes with Windows 8, it's not hard to disbelieve the anecdotal evidence that the real numbers are 30% of what the headlines say.
I see that someone did not like my point. I pose one last question in this context. How many of you would be prepared on a thread like this to accept anecdotal "evidence" that favoured Nokia or most particularly Microsoft? You wouldn't, would you? In fact anyone who tried to post anything like that would get absolutely hosed, would he not?
"I quite fancy a WP8 handset, but the main issue I have is putting down £400-500 on a SIM free handset only to hate it."
Hopefully there will be some lower-cost models. I paid £160 for the Lumia 710 and the only real difference between that and the more expensive 800 ones is a lower-quality camera and less storage space. I care about neither on a phone, so bargain for me. Windows Phone 8 devices are being made by several manufacturers, not just Nokia. So there should be some lower-end models.
> Nothing wrong with WP. Better having three main platforms to choose from than just a choice of iOS or Android.
Frankly, the kind of shill I hate the most is that which casually tosses off the plain lie that WP is the 'third main platform', in the hope that repeating it over and over again will make people believe it.
................assessment of the current situation. The howlers will not like it of course because the implication is that Nokia might prosper under certain circumstances. That is the last thing they want to hear and you can expect the usual "howling and fudding" in response to what you have posted.
"It will write down €220m worth of components which can’t now be sold in phones. Since this includes Lumia, Symbian and Meego handsets, we can’t infer that Nokia had overestimated the appeal of Windows. Not without more information."
Now there's a surprise (having to write down components due to go into Meego phones)!
Since it only marketed the devices in Timbuktu and the dark side of the moon, it's hardly surprising Nokia has components left over. After all, Meego outselling Win7 would have been pretty embarrassing for Elop. Far better to effectively strangle it at birth, regardless of how good it was.
Most of the components would be for the Lumia as sales never never met the expectations of Nokia. Nokia has also refused to say how many N9's (MeeGo) were sold in Q4 2011 but did say:
"The increase in our Smart Devices volumes in the fourth quarter 2011 was primarily driven by the broader availability throughout the quarter of the Nokia N9 and the shipments during the quarter of the Nokia Lumia 800 and 710 in selected markets, as well as increased seasonal demand for our devices” Nokia."
With Lumia sales not moving all that much, the N9 was substantial. Imagine if Nokia actually marketed it. By keeping the numbers silent, Elop gets to save face.
Having killed Meego after it shipped, then having killed Meltimi after it was mostly done, Nokia have no OS of their own for cheap devices. Rumor has it that they will use the Android kernel, for some kind of html phone, but thats going to take a long time to come, and with WP doing so poorly they don't have time.
They need to get rid of Ellop, as he has proven he just doesn't understand the market. He keeps killing programs - sighting they are to costly, but then he always find's money to start new ones. - never time to do it right but always time to do it over.
Fnding a Steve Job's like CEO maybe next to impossible, but Nokia needs to get somebody that somewhat resembles Jobs, somebody who can articulate and describe what a product can and should be (lead from the front not from behind) . Ellop is a sales guy, and as Job's said many times over - sales guys make ineffective leaders.
"Elop is a sales guy" (I'll at least do him the courtesy of spelling his name correctly). Many of the previous MD's I've served under were 'sales guys'. They were good, they knew their onions.
I expect that's why I, as a 'sales guy' progressed to General Manager of Boston Systems Office, UK. But, hell, what do I know....
You missed the point, it's not that a "sales guy" cannot be the MD, it's that the companies tend to go to crap when they are. Everybody gets blamed except the culprit and the end result is a cheap sale of the assets to someone smarter, while the "sales guy" jumps ship as he has seen the forecasts. I've worked for "sales guys" too.
Windows8 with MetroUI is going to be a huge failure. Way worse than Vista for Microsoft.
Nokia sold just a few millions smartphones. Its market share didn't increase at all. People don't want the MetroUI. WindowsPhone7.x as well as upcoming WindowsPhone8 are a shame due to MetroUI.
Nokia once ad the perfect OS with Symbian and the excellent QT APIs. But they trashed everything and wasted money and stole money from investors. What a fraud. What a shame.
MetroUI is a failure. And by forcing MetroUI on desktops and servers Microsoft is going to be in some serious trouble pretty soon. No matter if they sell Windows8 at $10.00 trying to mimic Apple low priced OSX updates.
No one that would want to keep using their PCs would waste even a few bucks on the awful Windows8 MetroUI.
Do you have a WP7 phone? I do. Metro is a great design - that's part of the irony of this situation. The product sells itself to people who actually try it. But WP7 sales are likely to flatline now that MS has said there will be no upgrade to WP8. MS obviously has some new design people, shackled to the same old bean counters.
{{{It wouldn’t harm Nokia if it could squeeze in the 41MP sensor found on the PureView into its Windows portfolio soon.}}}
The Symbian PureView (808) will still outsell any WP8 variant of it.
Please compare Nokia N9 sales with Lumia 800's.
It's not the hardware. It's the software (Windows Phone OS) which no one is caring about.
Everyone except Ballmer/Elop/the most hardcore MSFT astroturfers understands this.
Personally, I left Nokia after about fifteen years of them being my only phone supplier. I left partly because their hardware wasn't all that (The express music 5800 was the final straw.) but mainly because Symbian was flakey, bad a syncing, crashy, obviously old and dated.
Were I to go back to Nokia it would be because they have sorted out their hardware and I quite like the WP Operating system. Sure it's not as configurable as Android, or got as many apps as iOS, but it's got enough apps, it's stable, slick, syncs with everything you can shake a stick at and I'm not that fussed about editing the hosts file of a telephone, I have my linux laptop for that.
Also, why is it that anyone who says anything positive about MS has to be a shill or astroturfer?
Some time ago here on El Reg I gave a minor lecture on the "long put option" using Nokia as an example case. The post is here: http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/1376189
Using that example case if you bought the Put option given there three months ago for $0.62 and sold it today for $1.62 you would be 2.6x ahead for that period and well advised to get out no matter what you thought the future might bring. Or at least you might take your original investment out plus whatever you think is a reasonable premium and let the rest ride Nokia to $0.01. There is some big risk there though because eventually Nokia might fall to a point where they needs must be bought out, and at least the price will bounce. If they're bought out and close before your option date your options are worth nothing because the option to sell shares that don't exist is worth nothing.
Claim a win. Take your base and the profits you want out now. Leave a little of your paper profits in just in case it goes to zero and you jackpot.
If you're well ahead take some winnings off the table - or take them all off the table and find a new company that's being phenomenally stupid. There always is one. Under $3 per share units are risky business, and this one gave all it's worth already, I think.
Again:This is all gambling - don't bet more than you can afford to lose. I'm not an investment advisor and I'm definitely not yours. The above information is for entertainment value only, and should not be taken as a recommendation for any course of action. It may be inaccurate, and your mileage may vary.
"So the carriers truly hate Skype. Dont' take my word for it, Elop himself told the Nokia shareholders that yes, Skype is severely disliked by operators/carriers and by some to that extreme degree they have refused to sell any current Microsoft Windows based smarphones - which don't even have Skype preinstalled. This not because of Skype but because Microsoft now owns Skype. It does not matter whether you think this is fair, or illogical, or even you believe it is true. Stephen Elop, the CEO of Nokia, tells the Nokia shareholder meeting, he formally talks as Nokia CEO to the owners of Nokia, and this is on video and in transcript - that the reason carriers hate Windows Phone smartphones is because Microsoft now owns Skype. Not because you and I use Skype on some phone on Android or whatever. Elop says, the reason carriers hate Windows Phone smartphones is because Microsoft now owns Skype - and Elop tells us some have gone as far to stop selling any Windows smarpthones not just Lumias. Go watch the video!"
From
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/07/the-sun-tzu-of-nokisoftian-microkia-mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-whose-the-baddest-of-them-all-waterloo.html
OK, you've got a point that the WP7 Lumia's were just simple branded reference designs, but that's how Microsoft has always pushed Windows Mobile/Phone - it specs out the HW, provides the software and the OEM just gets to choose color theme and finish for the casing. I've not seen anything that says WP8 will be pushed any different, so unless Nokia has done a deal that allows them far greater flexibility in the finished product then why would WP8 work out any better than WP7?
And if they were allowed that flexibility, is that really going to save them - by their own admission they weren't so hot at adding in customization layers onto their bought in platforms - and even if they wanted do, do they actually have any developers left to do this? Unless Elop is a l33t coder and is keen on pushing his own custom ROMZ...
And then there's the question of whether or not people actually want a Windows Phone. There's over a decade of evidence that suggests not. Have they figured out why yet? I doubt it.
Thinking about it, it may be simply be that the thing that holds Windows Mobile/Phone back is the association with Desktop Windows - I'd bet that all of the potential customers for a Windows Phone will have had experience of a Windows PC. If they are coming from having a pre-WP7 Nokia, they may well be used to having a pretty solid phone, and would probably be thinking "Do I really want the same experience on my phone as I have on my PC?"
Back in the 1990s if anyone had asked me for a mobile phone recommendation I would always give the same answer: just buy a Nokia. It didn't really matter which one, they were all good - they had the best hardware and the best interface.
These days it's no exaggeration to say that Nokia is at the very bottom of the list. In fact I now say make absolutely sure you don't buy a Nokia. Just get an iPhone or Android phone depending on budget.
It's genuinely sad.
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