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IDC: Nokia could lose their dominant position in Western Europe to Samsung this year

Categories: Nokia, Samsung
By: , IntoMobile
Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 1:12 AM

Forget about America for a second, and realize that Europe is where mobile phones took off first. Nokia practically owned the market in the 90s and early 00s, but research recently done by IDC says that the dominance Nokia has been enjoying is in danger of being taken away by them from none other than Samsung.

Here are the numbers to back that up:

  • Nokia’s Q1 2010 total mobile phone shipments fell 9% year on year
  • Their total device market share, year on year, went from 39% to 33%
  • Nokia’s smartphone market share fell 16% year on year, from 57% to 41%
  • Nokia’s traditional feature phone shipments fell year on year by 18%
  • Their feature phone market share fell from 35% to 30%
  • Samsung now ships 40% of all feature phones in Europe, but their smartphone are not doing so well
  • Nokia’s overall Q1 2010 market share is 32.8% versus Samsung’s 29.3%

The Nokia story is a lovable one. Company started out making paper, then cables, then all of a sudden they became this mobile phone powerhouse. Samsung’s is similar. Started out as a distributor of vegetables, fish and noodles, then they focused on wool of all things, and finally in the 1960s they started focusing on electronics, with support from the South Korean government.

Look where they are now.

Personally, I can’t stand Samsung devices. Build quality hasn’t matched that of Nokia, neither has the choice of materials. Don’t even get me started with TouchWIZ and Bada.

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.

  • VanZan

    Samsung and bad build quality? Think about it again :) Remember N95, N95, N86…

  • Stefan Constantinescu

    Nseries Nokia devices are crap. Always have been. Eseries on the other hand … wow.

  • Phil Lasker

    Samsung phones are limited and my two samsung phones broke down after two years. Not the case with my nokia phones. They are incredibly well-built. Solid.

  • @arthcabby

    Stefan, Samsung may indeed have build quality issues. But let us not forget the king of crap: the Nokia N97.
    - A "protective" cover that scratches the very lens it's supposed to protect? Check.
    - A GPS that can't get a proper fix? Check.
    - An OS that's dated and unresponsive. Check.
    Shall I continue? Six months of N97 ownership was enough of a torture for me.

  • Stefan Constantinescu

    As I said earlier, that one device is not representative of Nokia’s entire portfolio of devices. Nseries always have, and always will be, crap.

  • Finl412

    There are many Sammy haters due to their choice of materials. Sammy always try to design their products light and durable. Yes, textures often fail but they are NOT built shotty. You drop them but they will survive. Try that with Apple…they will crack somewhere before you know it. Leave TouchWiz and Bada alone. You many not like it but there are many other find them to be useful. But I don’t like Bada either. Touchwiz has some merits IMHO. What Sammy excels are their components. Just look at the list of world class components manufactured in house by Sammy for upcoming phones. Orion A9 Cortex CPU & GPU, the industry’s first “monolithic” four gigabit LPDDR2 RAM module, and Super AmOled exceeding current 480×800 resolutions.