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.