“Shares in the Finnish firm plunged almost 14% as it announced worse-than-expected results over the first quarter, when it was forced to slash its prices,” Wray reports. “There is speculation that further price cuts could be on the way as it battles to maintain its market share.”
“It confirmed the widespread speculation that it has delayed the launch of devices based on the newest version of its Symbian mobile phone software,” Wray reports. “The company has yet to produce a handset that can compete directly with Apple’s iPhone in the very top end of the smartphone market and there are hopes that the Symbian^3 software platform will enable Nokia to regain some of its former magic.”
Wray reports, “But Nokia said in its statement today that while it plans to launch the first smartphone based on the platform in the second quarter of this year, shipments are not expected until the third quarter, three months later than the market had hoped. The phone in question is widely believed to be the Nokia N8, a touchscreen phone that has a mammoth 12-megapixel camera. Nokia hopes it will compete head-on with the next generation of the iPhone – expected in the summer – as well as Android handsets such as Google’s Nexus One…”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, how, oh, who will they ever manage to compete with the Nexus One?
We grow tired of all the ill-concieved attempts of “journalists” to incessantly, nonsensically, and moronically equate also-rans with Apple. Therefore, a reality break is in order:
• Gizmodo: Google’s rebadged HTC ‘Nexus One’ is a total flop – March 16, 2010
• Goldman Sachs chops 2010 unit sales estimate for Google’s rebadged HTC ‘Nexus One’ from 3.5m to 1m – March 08, 2010
• Screen Test: Apple’s iPhone 3GS LCD gets the part over Google’s rebadged HTC ‘Nexus One’ OLED – February 22, 2010
• Google’s rebadged HTC ‘Nexus One’ sales slow; Just 80,000 units sold in first month – February 05, 2010
• And so it begins: Google discounts ‘Nexus One’ by $100 – January 16, 2010
• Google rebadged HTC ‘Nexus One’ phone leaves string of disappointed customers in its wake – January 14, 2010
• Google rebadged HTC ‘Nexus One’ phone limps into market; only 20,000 units moved in first week – January 13, 2010
• Google’s HTC ‘Nexus One’ phone sparks deluge of complaints; Epic failure for Google – January 13, 2010
Wray continues, “Today’s results showed how desperately the company needs a so-called ‘iPhone killer’ … ‘We continue to face tough competition with respect to the high end of our mobile device portfolio, as well as challenging market conditions on the infrastructure side,’ admitted chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s iPhone is ‘niche product.’ – Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, April 17, 2008
Wray continues, “The company warned that it expects operating margins in its devices and services business to be between 9% to 12% in the second quarter of 2010, compared with 12.1% in the first quarter and 15.4% in the last quarter of 2009. There is speculation that the company is planning price cuts of up to 10% in an effort to regain market share.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Welcome to Dell-land, Nokia. You won’t be able to make it up in volume, either.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Too Hot!” for the heads up.]
Connecting Losers™. You won’t start winning anything until you first clean house. Fire His Highness Anssi ‘the idiot’ Vanjoki, then give OPK his walking papers.
Thats for starters.
Then, Ojanpera needs to be sent packing yesterday … he is the real dunce.
What the hell good is a 12 megapixel camera with a crappy small lens?
GREAT! This is what I need, 12Mpixel camera in my phone! I will be able to do weddings from now on.
Nokia can retain their market share if they offer the phones for free and tape a $100 bill to each phone! It is similar to RIMM’s buy one Turd-berry and get one free!
I found their 1+ year old phone models are still expensive (as I was looking for a cheap 2nd “basic” phone).
Hmmm, only a profit margin of 12%? Apple’s 40+% margin is what is kicking everyone’s a**!
MDN noted “Welcome to Dell-land, Nokia. You won’t be able to make it up in volume, either.”
Unfortunately, with Apple in high gear, it is likely to get VERY much worse.
Does anyone remember the iPod gen 1 & 2? Does anyone remember what happened NEXT?
iPod Shuffle dropped the player price substantially.
Does anyone think Apple is going to let the low end of the market remain soley for all the other competitors forever?
iPhoneMini is assuredly in development.
What is NoKia going to do then?
We are basically 3 years into the iPhone and there are no truly solid competitors to iPhone Gen 1, unless you call Android serious.
Definitely a 12 megapixel camera would be a negative for me. As if every goddamn picture I take is going to be turned into a high resolution glossy photo. Give me 3 megapixel with a quality lens so my regular photos come out nice.
Idiots.
You might have thought they would have learned from Dell actually. But then when you have little in the research labs to compete I suppose there is little else to do.. . except sue perhaps, oh yes now there’s a coincidence.
Oh I get it, we don’t need a phone with a camera, we need a camera with a phone. Now I understand.
I think it is amazing how cell phone makers can’t find a way to copy apple on gross margin. Apple has found a way to have crazy GM but still sell millions of units.
MDN missed some low hanging fruit.
The iPhone doesn’t occupy the “Very top end” of the phone market. The 3G iPhone at $99 is firmly in the middle of the market, and possibly the low end of the smart phone market.
@Burrell
Apple is not going to make an iPhone ‘mini’!
They will reach the lower end of the market by continuing to produce older models with substantial price cuts but Apple will not radically change the size of the iPhone (except to make small alaterations to the sceen).
I think they need to have a 36MP camera, and have a 3 for 1 sale. Yep that will save them.
To begin, I love my iPhone 3GS, and will probably get the next upgrade. That said, I feel Nokia deserves a little more credit than MDN is giving them.
If I had to have a phone that was not an iPhone, it would be a Nokia. As far as their smart phones are concerned, they have excellent hardware features and pretty decent software (relative to other non-OS X variants, like WinMo and WebOS).
**Another big point in their favor is that they develop iSync plug-ins for most of their phones not yet supported by iSync natively. Kudos to Nokia for that.**
I love my iPhone, and Nokia’s leadership may or may not be lacking, but Nokia is still better than others when it comes to smart phones, IMO.
Wait until the new IPHONE SHUFFLE! Small enough to clip to your pocket. Has one button! When you hit it a random app comes up! $29!!!!!
Think about it. Even though the CEOs of these companies know quite well they’ve all but lost the battle to the iPhone, they can never concede that publicly. So, they pretend (and the media accepts) that they have these firm battle plans to resist the continuing onslaught of the iPhone.
Do I want them to fail? No, not at all. I’m an iPhone user and quite frankly it has even served me better in our Enterprise setting than my various iterations of the Blackberry ever did. Notwithstanding, I respect those who choose to use a Blackberry and want them to have the best possible experience with what they use.
On a final note, Nokia is not even a “has been” in the world of smartphones. The Symbian OS has always been clunky for anything other than the simple feature phones. They were never top of the game in that market segment. Palm OS devices, on the other hand, were the proverbial king of the hill. And they too have fallen by the wayside.
The iPhone, even though it has its shortcomings, is the best thing out there (in my opinion) in the world of smartphones. I’ve used several different types over the years and wouldn’t trade mine for anything.
I got a 12 megapixel camera on my new Nokia N8.
I took 6 pictures and then had to start deleting Apps.
Jazbo: teehee.
Wait a minute, wasn’t the Pre a iPhone killer also? What happened with all the other iPhone killers? Right!
“..Nokia to regain some of its former magic.””
And it was really “Magic”, I can’t understand any other way to sell those crappy devices and became #1
“In the land of the blinds, the one eye guy is the king” but sorry Nokia, a guy with several eyes just arrive.. the iPhone.
Nokia should be Palm.
Not saying the Web OS is great or anything, but at least they’d have something that’s not complete vaporware and they could have it quickly.
The thing is, when Apple really revs up its legal team a lot of these also-ran wannabe OS’s are going to be stripped of their most compelling features.
12MP camera?
Sorry, keep it at 3MP and put a decent lens on it.
My 9 year old Olympus C3040 with a measly 3.3MP sensor still beats the new 5, 6 and 12 MP cameras in picture clarity and quality.
A good clean sensor and an excellent lens is all you need. I regularly print 12 x 18 photos that everyone is just amazed by.
Nokia was king with 2G GSM feature phones, they are at best average with 3G smartphones, and they are dead when 4G arrives.
‘We lose on every sale but we make up for it in volume.’
BTW, why just a 12 megapixel camera? I’m waiting for a 53.5 megapixel phone camera. That’s the ticket!