Nokia sees its smartphone share back to 40 percent

31st January, 2010 by Adina
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The Finnish phone maker Nokia seems to recover after a successful fall season 2009. The 20.8 million devices shipped in the fall are much above the 16.4 million in the summer. The estimated 52.4 million smartphones Nokia shipped in the entire market compared to only 47 million make the company jump from the lower 35 percent share in the summer of 2009 to 40 percent at the end of the year.

The core Eseries and Nseries smartphones seem to be the source of Nokia’s better position on the market, 10.7 million of these devices being shipped versus only 8.9 million in the summer. The rest is formed of Symbian S60 smartphones not matching the category, such as, for example, the X6, and the Maemo-based N900. Fall has been the season when devices like the E72 and the N97 mini were launched and it seems they had an important contribution to the improvement of the sales results.

There was an overall improvement for Nokia, as it shipped 126.9 million phones of all kinds, which means 12 percent increase compared to a year ago and 17 percent compared to last summer. The company has bounced back from the sharp loss and made about $1.6 billion profit, meaning more than double the $688.9 million it had in late 2008.

The results partly masked lower performance in some areas when compared to 2008. The net sales dropped 5.3 percent on a year-over-year basis, to $16.8 billion. Considering the whole year, mix of its smartphone sales dropped from 48 million in 2008 to only 36 million last year. The average selling price for a Nokia cell phone dropped to around $88, which means 15 percent, as customers preferred to buy cheaper devices.

Cautious enough regarding its performance for the near future, Nokia expects its sales to drop sharply in the post-holiday period. Profit margin is also expected to drop because customers would avoid major purchases. Although there is an apparent recovery, the market share is supposed to be flat through the whole year 2010.

Extra details have not been provided about an eventual progress in the company’s attempts to block Apple through ITC and lawsuit measures. Apple has recently filed an ITC counter-complaint that, if won, could force much of Nokia’s goods out of the United States.


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