While the Americans cannot stop going ga ga over Iphone (though some agree that Iphone is not the
best) and hating Nokia smartphones (one of which is the E71) the sales trends of smartphones worldwide (which is the actual truth) show otherwise. This is the case with Americans most of the time – they are oblivious to the happenings around the world. In future. This attitude of Americans has made what America is today (recession and unemployment at a record high) and the downfall will continue till the attitude changes.
I’m a avid listener of “This week in tech” (TWIT) and many a times Nokia has been criticized in this podcast and most of the panel members believe only Iphone OS and Andriod OS are going to be left in the battle of smartphones.
However, if one is to look at the sales of the smartphones worldwide it is abundantly clear that Nokia is the clear leader (though I agree that Nokia has the most number of models available – but then who stopped anyone else from doing the same)
| Increase in market share of Smartphones (worldwide) in the Third Quarter of 2009 |
| Nokia | 6.1% (Source: neowin) |
| Blackberry (RIM) | 35.7% (Source: neowin) |
| Apple | 7.1% (Source: neowin) |
| HTC | 14.7% (Source: neowin) |
It is also mentioned in the report on Neowin that Nokia E71 and Nokia N97 are the best selling phones in Europe. In US the sales have been lower because of the lack of Carrier-based incentives.
Some of the critics might argue that the Nokia’s growth has been lower than that of Apple’s or Blackberry (RIM). The increase in market share has been lower for Nokia because Nokia already had a huge market share at the start of the quarter.
Another area where Iphone is touted to be better are the number of applications that have been downloaded. Apple store downloads are quoted to be at 2 billion with half a billion sales in the last quarter itself. Unfortunately the competitors do not have a single place (store) for downloads and therefore it is very difficult to estimate the number of downloads.
I hope the big guns (allegedly Apple!) wakes up to the reality that being the biggest seller in the US alone is not enough. If you want to dominate the market you need to look beyond US and keep users needs in mind. Agreed that Iphone dominates the US market and it has done a great job but if it could replicate its performance in the world market then Apple’s Iphone would be a true giant.
What do you feel? Will Apple start paying more attention to the markets outside of US? I personally feel it is unlikely because the profit margins per phone sold in the world market are lower than that of the consumers in US.
