Watch out, Nokia: Global mobile phone sales slowing

It seems as though hardly a month goes by without the launch of some flashy new mobile phone. Yet according to new figures from Gartner, overall mobile sales are slowing throughout most of the world, which could mean trouble ahead for some vendors – particularly Nokia. Total sales of all types of handsets were essentially flat …

[roselan]

Everybody here that wanted, or needed a smartphone got a decent one now.

Also, the increase in specs has been so spectacular in the last 6 months (screen size and resolution, project butter, new cpus), that people wonder if the trend will stop soon, and won't mind waiting a bit to get even better, I guess.

[Don Jefe]

This is the type of thing that brings prices down and new products out for sale. It is silly bad business to innovate when your current product is selling like crazy at high margins but once sales drop something has to give. I agree with you, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

[Daniel B.]

Dump MS, Nokia!

Elop brought only grief to Nokia by dumping Symbian and tying them to the unsellable MS/WinPhone platform. The cursed ship has usually claimed the companies that have backed it, like Sendo and Palm. Why the hell did they take that path?!?!

It is probably still time to dump Elop and change course. Nokia should do it while there's still cash to do so...

[Yag]

Re: Dump MS, Nokia!

Probably already too late.

And such flights of fancy (Let's dump Symbian! Now let's dump Win8!) will not help the image of Nokia.

[Shagbag]

Dump Elop (MS goes with him)

Nokia would be the Lenovo of smarphones if they'd bring out Android versions of their phones.

But MSFT doesn't want that because it would provided conclusive proof of what is widely acknowledged: WinPho is a failure.

MSFT FAIL. WINPHO FAIL.

[Mikel]

Nokia is not a top 10 smartphone OEM any more

Until they are again how about some articles about the up-and-coming all-stars instead?

[JTMILLER]

Re: Nokia is not a top 10 smartphone OEM any more

Ermmm they're top 4 in smartphone markets according to numerous sources, so while it is fun to play the nokia's dead bandwagon and yes their market share is tiny compared to the big two, they're still a player.

[Anonymous Coward]

A deeper look at the figures show that Windows Phone has also seen a significant market share increase to 2.9%, up from just over 1% Q1 2012. Seeing as Nokia commands the vast majority of that market share that equates to their smartphone market increasing.

Now taking the figures further of Androids 75% market share around 35 points of that is made of Samsung handsets, the other 40 points is spread out over the rest of the android handset makers. Android's 3rd best selling OEM doesn't even hit 5% market share. Nokia's smartphone marketshare is only a point or two behind that of the majority of Android OEMs.

[fandom]

So, the marketshare of the former market leader is 'only' a point of two behind the inconsequential Android OEMs.

Well, that's a relief!

[Anonymous Coward]

I never really pegged Sony or HTC as inconsequential Android OEMs.

[fandom]

No wonder you don't think of them as inconsequential, after all, you seem to believe that 2,9% is a big deal.

[Fihart]

The generic £50 Android.

People in the emerging markets are the only ones buying basic handsets and they are, doubtless, tempted by unbranded Android models.

Good question as to where this leaves Nokia who rely on basics and don't have Android. But I think it will affect the global market pretty soon.

Aside from the fashion conscious, why would we not buy ZTE or Huawei -- they've been making OEMs for years and their branded offerings are looking good, not just good value. And after them, several other Chinese makers are becoming household brands in their home market.

[Mr Spock]

Nokia's problems...

... are nothing to do with the global state of the market. Nokia's problems are entirely of Nokia's own making.

Or, to put it another way, it's nothing to do with the fact that people aren't buying phones; it's all to do with the fact that people aren't buying Nokia phones.

[Roland6]

Perhaps people have been spending their money on tablets...

Fun how the maturing of the mobile phone market isn't being heralded by the media as the end of mobile phones, like we've been seeing regarding traditional PC's...

Perhaps like tablets verses laptops and desktops, once people have a nice shiny tablet, they discover that they don't really need or can afford a fancy new mobile phone in addition to the tablet - as the fancy stuff is largely handled by the tablet, hence last year's mobile phone is still fit for purpose and in fact that old phone in the bottom of the draw has better battery life...

With practically all major IT consumer device markets reaching maturity we're now entering interesting times as companies will no longer be able to hide inefficiencies behind increasing sales volumes and revenues.

[Edwin]

Nokia on the way out?

I'm not buying it.

Tripling their (admittedly tiny) market share without help from their new cheaper wp8 models tells me there is a lot of potential there. And whatever the joys of Elop-bashing , I was very pleasantly surprised by wp8.