“Investors are upset that Nokia hasn’t been able to produce a true iPhone rival or take other steps to improve its financial health and are thought to be blaming company leader Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo for much of the trouble,” Electronista reports. “Both Alan B. Lancz & Associates and MKM Partners believe Nokia’s board could be under extreme pressure if there aren’t signs of improvement by the summer, when the N8 ships.”
Electronista reports, “Nokia still has the largest portion of the phone market but has slid to below 37 percent as Apple, RIM, Samsung and other companies have all drawn customers away… Kallasvuo’s performance has been even more in question relating to US performance, as he had promised to address a then-low 20 percent American market share but has left it with just 7 percent.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: While you’re at it, rename the company Jokia.
Shmokia
And what wasn’t mentioned is that Nokia’s large market share doesn’t translate to large profits, as the majority of that large market share are cheapest, throw-away, razor-thin profit margin dumbphones that they sell throughout Africa, Asia and the rest of the developing world.
Milia taught the world how to make mobile phones, and ground Yankee Motarola’s face into the dirt.
They still sell more phones than all the US/Canuck makers put together.
@European
Keep telling yourself that and perhaps you’ll feel better. Even if they sell a ton of crap, it’s still crap and they lag the true leaders.
There are millions of users who don’t need or want a smartphone; people who just want
phones that make calls and handle voicemail without a lot of whistles and bells. If Nokia concentrated on that market, instead of trying to come up with an iPhone killer, they’d be just fine.
Dear Nokia stockholders…
When you’re done with your drum, please loan it to Microsoft shareholders. They really need to use it.
Love,
The entire civilized world
@justme2
That’s exactly the kind of thinking that will sink a company like Nokia. Yes, there are people who just want basic phones now in the short term. But in 3-5 years almost everyone will be using a smartphone. That’s all that will be available. Nokia has to come up with a good offering in this area or they’re screwed long term.
@ European:
Nokia won’t be selling the most phones if their trend continues.
And Nokia is far, far behind in the smartphone race, which is where the entire industry is going. I can buy an iPhone for $99. Why would I get a very limited give-away phone, which is about all Nokia sells in the U.S.?
Nokia will die unless it quickly abandons Symbian as a smartphone OS or radically improves the OS into something competitive with the iPhone. The only other option is to leapfrog Apple, and good luck with that one.
@ European,
There are no US makers to put together. The Blackberry is made in Canada. Almost all other cell phones sold in North America are made in one of the two Chinas or S. Korea. Apparently about 10% are made in Europe.
What’s the matter European? Can’t you market cell phones without the European Common Market subsidies?
nokia = Dell of cellphone makers
Apparently, ‘European’ wasn’t referring to the devices actually manufactured in the US; he was (likely) referring to Motorola (the US company), as well as Apple.
As acid said, Nokia is becoming Dell of cellphones. Cheapest, crappiest devices, sold at razor-thin margins. It would be just fine to sell these devices to the developing world if it were actually a sustainable business model. Just like it isn’t working anymore for Dell (which actually has a massive enterprise market, mind you, and Nokia doesn’t), it won’t work for Nokia either.
If you are cellphone maker today, the only way to sustain your business is to compete in the market segment where profits can actually be made. This is becoming a massive challenge for Nokia.
I have never met a single person who owns a Nokia phone.
Donkia. Stinkia. Blankia…
Nokia’s cheap phones still have a place in the developing countries where it is still cheaper to put up a cell tower than run wires to all the places. And where many, many people’s yearly income is only 2 or 3 times what a smart phone costs.
Nokia was a king amongst paupers till the iPhone hit the scene.
Maybe Nokia should have bought palm, but they still think the iPhone is a clever joke
He found a formula for drawing comic rabbits:
This formula for drawing comic rabbits paid,
So in the end he could not change the tragic habits this formula for drawing comic rabbits made.
— Robert Graves
A quote from the Animator’s Survival Kit, a necessary, and vital book in any animator’s tool chest. Unfortunately, some of us cannot escape our chains. Especially if we make a living wearing those chains. Nokia’s CEO is in such a predicament, as is any CEO who’s work pays him not to change.
Flash back: Steve Ballmer and Steve Jobs walked into PARC together, let’s say, and they both came away with an idea.
Jobs gave the world the iPad and Ballmer dragged out his Big-Ass Table.
Do you know why Microsoft’s engineers made their vision of a multi-touch device as big as a desk? They wanted something too heavy for Ballmer to throw across the room!
heh heh heh
@Big Al
The thing is, Americans love cheap crappy stuff. That’s why they go to Wal-Mart to buy a crappy $99 power mower that’ll last a year or two instead of the big name brand model with the 10-year warranty that costs three times as much. Americans are cheap. They buy Dells. They make the calculation that they’ll get sufficient use out of the cheapest model to make the quality and longevity trade-off acceptable. For mowers, maybe so. For computers, maybe not. But that’s the thinking, and that’s why most cellphone users still see what they can get for free from their phone company and take that instead of the $199 iPhone.
That said, cheap is not always crappy. I have a Dell Mini 9 running Snow Leopard and it’s a great little machine. Limited, sure, but quite good for travel computing, sturdy with acceptable build quality, and quite fast at most tasks under 10.6. It’s what I could afford at the time. I understand why Apple has chosen to avoid the thin margins of the netbook market and I hope to replace the hackintosh soon with an iPad. But I also think Nokia will survive and possibly thrive with cheap, less capable and even crappy alternatives to the iPhone.
“The thing is, Americans love cheap crappy stuff.”
Nokia can’t crack the US market so it must be the asians and the europeans who made Nokia the world’s largest handset maker.
But, you’re right, when I think of cheap crappy stuff, I think of Dell and Walmart. The people who shop those places know their purchase isn’t going to last a lifetime though. They just want it to last until they’ve made their final payment. Anything beyond that is gravy and will pat themselves on the back for making a steal.
They still sell more phones than all the US/Canuck makers put together. —European
And alot of good it’s doing them!
NOidea
Here’s what Apple needs on the iPhone to put them over the top
http://tinyurl.com/gimmecursorkeysnowapple
Ya gotta admit N8 is a damn catchy name.
I will miss you Olli.
@breeze
“Nokia was a king amongst paupers till the iPhone hit the scene.”
Now it is trending to be a pauper amongst kings.
@bizlaw
” I can buy an iPhone for $99. Why would I get a very limited give-away phone, which is about all Nokia sells in the U.S.?”
You wouldn’t.
However, people who make limited use of a cell phone or who don’t want to spend the money on a smart phone monthly plan would probably think differently.