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Marketing Doesn’t Matter: Whether Apple or Nokia is #1 doesn’t mean a damn thing

Categories: Ideas and rants
By: , IntoMobile
Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 12:41 PM

When Steve Jobs got on stage Wednesday and told an audience of journalists that Apple was now the largest mobile company in terms of revenue, larger than Nokia even, you could hear Finland cocking their rifles and firing up the jets. Apple fanbois now have a sound bite that get to throw out every time someone says anything about Nokia, whether it be that they make $20 devices for the emerging economies, or that Nokia ships more devices in a quarter than Apple does in a year, or that Nokia makes 4 out of every 10 smartphones, or that Steve Jobs’ is an idiot for counting the iPod Touch and Mac laptops as mobile products, none of that now matters to the zealot crowd.

The opposite effect is expected from Nokia fanbois, who now not only have to defend the company’s devices — the Eseries models are built better than the iPhone, the Nseries not so much, but let’s not talk about that, Symbian is more open, Maemo supports Flash 9 — but also mention that Nokia’s Q4 2009 results came out a day after the iPad/iTampon announcement and put Nokia on top of Apple in terms of revenue.

Nokia felt so upset by Jobs’ statement that Mark Squires, Head of Social Media, published a blog post defending the company.

You know what? None of this matter. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Products matter. Not your financial results, not your slick commercial produced by an expensive and world renowned creative group, but the actual plastic and metal physical items that you sell to people.

So when someone tells you that company A is better than company B because of some bullshit fact that has no relation to why either of you purchased your devices to being with, just tell them to fuggedaboutit.

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

  • Nick Doucet

    That’s so true….

  • kilari

    I’m very happy that someone on the journalism side doesn’t have on their blinders on and only argues for Apple products. Although I agree it’s all about the better handset for the buck I also think it’s BS that Jobs is allowed by the media to just make up lies and they won’t call him on it. I’ll say it once again. In the name of freedom i’ll never own an Apple product.

  • Hussa

    Actually, to say that none of that matters isn’t true. For one company to claim to be more successful than the other, they are most definitely talking about revenues and if Apple issues a false statement like that, then it is only right for Nokia to defend itself. Financial results matter, it shows that their products are selling and hence, the plastic and metal physical items are good.