“Nokia has pledged to strike back at Apple and produce mobile phones that will compete effectively with the US technology company’s iPhone,” Andrew Parker and Andrew Ward report for The FInancial Times. “Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, chief executive of Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone maker, said that it was aiming to be ‘even more competitive’ following criticism that it had failed to come up with a handset to match the iPhone.”
“Nokia is the world’s largest maker of smartphones – mobile phones that double up as mini computers – but it has been losing market share to rivals led by Apple… Mr Kallasvuo defended Nokia’s N97 smartphone, the company’s main answer to the iPhone, following criticism by some analysts that it is a poor alternative to Apple’s handset,” Parker and Ward report. “He said: ‘We are competitive in the marketplace right now as we speak, and we will make efforts to be even more competitive going forward.’ Apple’s rapidly growing strength as a mobile phone maker is underlined by its securing the second largest share of the industry’s profits in the second quarter.”
MacDailyNews Take: In order to explore the striking dichotomy between pronouncements from CEOs of Apple’s roadkill and actual reality, please see: Gizmodo reviews Nokia N97: ‘If this is the best they can do, Nokia is doomed’ – July 06, 2009
Parker and Ward continue, “In the three months to June 30, Apple took 23 percent of the leading handset makers’ operating profits, compared with 2 percent in the same period last year, say Bernstein analysts… Nokia secured 28 percent of the top handset makers’ operating profits in the second quarter, down from 59 percent in the same period last year.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Nokia. The Underwood Typewriter Company of the 2010s.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James W.” for the heads up.]
So, Mr Kallasvuo is saying that they will someday make a phone as good as Apple? Why would you buy a phone from them today?
Don’t worry Nokia, you’ll never sell a thing in North America, but people will love your phones in Europe for a while.
I’m actually living in Asia now and people here love the Nokia name. I just don’t get it. The phones are clunky and retro.
i read that apple had 8% of revenues and 32% of profits of the global handset market (1,1, billion devices) last quarter. maybe 23 is a typo.
have a look here:
http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090804/iphone-claims-32-percent-of-handset-industry-operating-profits/
Back some 15 years ago, the first couple of cell phones I had were Nokia. For me, they were pretty good at the time. They worked well, had a good sturdy build quality, looked good. But like all the others, Nokia just got caught soooo flat footed by the iPhone. But they’ve had more than 2 1/2 years since the original iPhone was first announced. What, uh…the hell have they been doing? I can’t decide whether it’s been a head-in-the-sand situation, or if they simply don’t have the talent to compete with the iPhone.
It reminds me of a friend who told me about a bar fight he once got into. He said they agreed to ‘take it outside’. So just as my friend was walking out the door, the other guy immediately slammed him in the face with a two by four. The parking lot was gravel, and he said every time he would scramble to his feet the guy would just punch him in the face and knock him down again. He said ‘I would have been better off to have just stayed down’. Hmmm…..
It’s actually quite fun to think back and picture the sneers one would have been given by the industry know-it-all’s just a few years back if one would have said that in just a few short years Nokia will “pledged to produce mobile phones that will compete effectively” with Apple. Apple thought different and now everyone else tries to too. I have my doubts as to their eventual success, though …
I don’t remember the last time I looked at a Nokia.
Mr. Kallasvuo translation: We’re screwed! We’re a hardware company.
Reviews just don’t get any better than “a steaming pile of suck on a slab of garbage toast.”
In other words: We’re going to copy Apple, just all like the other guys doing already.
Nokia lost me as a customer a couple of years ago. I’ve had every Nokia Communicator, or should I say I’ve suffered every Nokia Communicator. Never again.
just keep swinging till you get one lousy small hit, or tire yourself out of the game, good job Nokia, it amazes me they will need more than one phone to compete against one phone. I bet apple is laughing at everyone at owning only one phone model wants to beat or match, against an armada of phones from other handset makers.
Bring it on.
LOL…… 2 years later they plan on trying to compete with Apple. It’s like Kallasvuo picked up a newspaper and finally realized that the iPhone is here. Can you imagine the meeting they just had at Nokia? Kallasvuo “Have you guys heard about this new phone…. the iPhone?” Another exec “Yes sir, it has been on the market for 2 years”. Kallasvuo “Well, we are going to crush this new phone”.
Sheesh, an assault on Apple. You would think a company would rather spend its time building excellent products for it’s consumers. Duh.
‘Nokia pledges smartphone assault on Apple’
Don’t they mean Nokia pledges smartphone INSULT…?
Next week they plan on calling Apple a poopy company!
Strange, I don’t recall Nokia being a pocket computer maker. I guess their ‘experience’ will serve them well.–lol
OS X – overlooked by by desktop makers; unapproachable by mobile makers; will lay waste to netbook makers.
Nokia Corporate Strategy:
“Apple, You will rue the day you crossed Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. …well…go on…start rueing!!!!”
Have Nokia allowed for the fact that by the time they release this wonder phone, Apple will also have updated their iPhones ?
They haven’t a clue what they’re going to have to compete with in the future, but they feel confident that they will be able to compete effectively with it, even though they have so far failed to compete effectively with the existing iPhones.
Fine Nokia. If you want to compete effectively with Apple stop talking about it and DO IT!
Well that solves it then.
Nokia just had to try harder, want it badder.
Thanks coach!
Folks …
Remember what Steve said 2+ years ago at the iPhone Intro …
“Software at least 5 years ahead of anybody else”
But he had no need for any predictions like that about Hardware
Why not ?
“And boy did we Patented it”
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BC
You know, I’m getting tired of opening up MDN and seeing these ridiculous ads floating all over the text and you can’t read what’s underneath!
So, the plot thickens. Just where did that stolen iPhone prototype go from China? You know the one that the guy committed suicide over instead of letting people know who he gave it to.
So, does Nokia have some blood on their hands??
There was a cover story about Nokia’s new phone in the latest issue of “Fast Company” magazine. But I didn’t bother to read it.