The Nokia Q4 smartphone sales numbers released yesterday took me a bit by surprise, so we spent most of yesterday on the blog and on Twitter talking about the newest numbers. But now returning back to our series of One Nokia Problem Discussed In One Picture, today lets look at the transition from Symbian based Nokia smartphones to Windows Phone on Lumia.
I've already shown you in one picture how Nokia's unit sales that grew faster than the biggest rivals in 2010, grew 53% in just one year in fact, immediately turned into catastrophic decline the moment when the Elop Effect happened in February 2011. I've then shown how Nokia's performance compared to the two main rivals over these past few years, Apple's iPhone and the Samsung series of smartphones. And at the previous blog posting in this series, I showed how the collapse in Nokia market share was in fact, a world record failure in the handset business, far faster than any other comparable market failure, like Palm, Motorola, Siemens, Windows Phone, LG and RIM. Now lets look at how Elop's promised transition ie migration strategy is working out.
A lot of people seem to be celebrating the 4.4 million Lumia smartphone sales number as if its 'good news'. They clearly don't know the industy or Nokia's past. Nokia did 4.4 million smartphones not per quarter, but per every two weeks back before the Elop Effect. The last time Nokia introduced a new Symbian version operating system - like the new Windows Phone 8 right now - was when Nokia introduced Symbian S^3 for Q4 in 2010. How did it do? In the first quarter, it sold 5 million units, led by its flagship, the N8 which sold 4 million units. Now, even as the smartphone market is more than twice as big, Elop's 'magnificent' Microsoft marvels on his Lumia series - after five months of trying, including not one but two new operating system versions and not one but three separate flagships - have yet to match that 5 million sales per quarter.
The 4.4 million seems like a big jump from the miserable Q3 when Nokia managed only 2.9 million Lumia, but bear in mind, that in Q2 of 2012, Nokia sold 4 million Lumia, so in the last 6 months of massive global Nokia/Microsoft Lumia/Windows Phone push, including new carriers announced and new operating systems released, Nokia grew Lumia by.. 10%. yes, a lousy 10% growth for Lumia in the past 6 months while the industry grew in the same period .. get this .. by 57%. You wanna call that a success? I don't, and I won't.
So lets go to the migration ie transition rate then from Symbian to Windows Phone. Elop promised when he released this risky Microsoft strategy in February 2011, that he will achieve 1-to-1 transition from Symbian to Windows Phone. Now we have seen Symbian at its last viable quarter, so its about time to count, did the migration succeed then. Here is the picture:
The above picture may be freely shared
Yeah. The promised transition from Symbian to Windows Phone has not succeeded anywhere near 1-to-1. Its not even doing 1 out of every 2, or even 1 out of every 4. If we measure by unit sales, and ignore the growth in the smartphone industry for the past 2 years, and try to paint this misery in the best possible light for Elop's misguided Microsoftian misadventure, then by unit sales, Nokia sold 28.8 million smarpthones per quarter as the strategy was announced, and today 2.2 million of those smartphones are still on Symbian. Out of the 26.6 million Symbian sales attempted to migrate to Lumia running Windows Phone, there are only 4.4 million that succeeded and 22.2 million loyal Nokia smartphone users on Symbian, that were scared away to buy a rival handset maker's smartphones, Samsungs and others on Android, Apple's iPhones, or Blackberries or whatever others. By unit sales, the failure rate of Elop's Microsoft strategy is 83% only 17% have succeeded. So only one in six existing Nokia customers were migrated successfully to Windows Phone. Thats one way to look at it, the 'rosy' view. How about the reality view? Brace yourself.
If we measure by market share, Nokia had 29% market share when the new strategy was announced. This measure accounts for market growth. So today, Symbian based smartphones only account for 1% of global sales, and Nokia therefore has attempted to transition the 28% of its smartphone customers it had using Symbian to Windows Phone. And now the successfull transition results in 2% market share for Lumia in Q4 and 26% of Nokia loyal smartphone user market share gifted to rivals, in scaring away loyal Nokia users to Android, iOS, Blackberry, bada and others. Now the failure rate of Elop's strategy is a mindboggling 93%. Yes, only 7% of Nokia's attempts to lure Symbian customers to Lumia has succeeded. Out of every 14 attempts to migrate a customer from Symbian to Windows Phone, 13 have run away. Only one in 14 attempts to transition to Lumia has succeeded. You call this strategy good, and worth pursuing?
The independent survey of Lumia owners in America by Yankee Group last year found that four out of ten Lumia owners hated the phones so much, they gave it a rating of 1 out of 5 where 5 is best, 1 is worst. And now we have the Bernstein study of smartphone users by platform, in USA and Europe, which found that only 37% of Windows Phone smartphone owners are willing to make their next smartphone purchase another Windows Phone (most of those are Nokia owners, Nokia has been selling about 75% of all Windows Phone smartphones, the other 'partners' are either completely abandoning the Windows ecosystem like Sony, LG and Dell, or severely cutting down their involvement like HTC or pursuing other platforms like Samsung, or simply no longer providing new handsets for Windows Phone 8 like Huawei and ZTE). Yes, 63% of current Windows Phone owners want desperately to get rid of their phone and replace it with anything else! Compare that to Android which has 75% loyalty or iPhone which has 95% loyalty according to the Bernstein survey. Even poor old beleagured Blackberry has 57% loyalty, far bigger than Windows Phone and look how badly RIM is doing with its current model line. (And yes, in 2010, prior to the Elop Effect, Nokia's Symbian based consumer satisfaction was second highest in the industry, behind only the iPhone. Nokia customers were very satisfied and loyally bought Nokia after Nokia after Nokia).
So lets take a new look at the same graph I prepared, and add the Bernstein finding. This is the best case of how Elop's Windows strategy has going forward, the green part is the only slice that Elop has been able to win over to remain with both Nokia and Windows Phone on his Lumia series.
The above picture may be freely shared
So yes, when we add the severe dissatisfaction with the Windows Phone operating system and Lumia by their first owners, almost two thirds want to get rid of their Lumia and take some other, any other operating system based smartphones instead of their Windows smartphones, on both sides of the Atlantic, then yes, this strategy is utterly doomed, not just failing now, but into the future. Because, look at the 'real picture' ie taking market growth into consideration, the right side graph - market share. Stephen Elop's mad Microsoftian misery has managed to migrate from totally satisfied Symbian Nokia users - Nokia grew smartphone sales 53% from 2009 to 2010 - to now, only one in 20 loyal Nokia Symbian users who were tricked into converting to Windows Phone, both arrived there and is intending to stay. 17 of those 20 have already been scared away and 2 of the remaining 3 are already decided, they will not remain with Lumia series longer. This is the very definition of textbook strategy failure.
The Windows Phone strategy has failed comprehensively. Nokia knew this strategy was extremely risky, they wrote a massive risks assessment, hundreds of itemized risks to the strategy, in their filing to the SEC and New York Stock Exchange two years ago. And Nokia listed various reasons why the transition might not result in a 1-to-1 migration from Symbian to Windows Phone. Those risks have come true, but the carnage to Nokia is worse than anyone could have anticipated. I had issued the most pessimistic forecasts for Nokia's preformance in 2011, and many derided me for those forecasts at the time. Now we can see that my forecasts turned out to be too rosy. The collapse of Nokia's smarpthone business has set a new world record for failure. Even we forecasters had no model to compare it to, nobody had ever failed this totally in any two year period, not in mobile phones, not in cars, not in soft drinks, not in airlines not in personal computers, never in any industry.
Now look at that graph. If this is the 'success level' for Lumia's transition - failing in real terms 93% of the time, or out of every 14 attempts, 13 fail - and of the remaining suckers who took the fool's gold peddled as Nokia Lumia smarpthones, two thirds hate it so much they will buy any other smartphone than Windows Phone next time, why would you think this 'strategy' can somehow turn into a success under Elop and running Windows Phone? No wonder Elop now is letting rumors spread that Nokia is considering Android instead of Windows Phone. No wonder Steve Ballmer at Microsoft has given up on Elop and Nokia, and is proceeding to build his own smartphones. And it is now no surprise that Elop desperately is peddling any story to trick journalists into believing Nokia is ok, such as reclassifying Nokia's S40 based featurephones on his Asha series as if they were smartphones. Sure, I can also call an Etch-a-Sketch a smartphone, it doesn't make it one. Luckily all major analyst houses are rejecting that silly claim.
The simple fact is, that looking at that picture, it is obvious that Elop has failed totally in his primary goal of his strategy. He did not fulfill on his promise. 19 out of 20 loyal Nokia Symbian smartphone customers have either already left, or have already decided not to continue with this unsatisfying smartphone experience. Its about time for the Nokia Board to wake up and fire this Microsoft Muppet.
That was the discussion of the risk that Nokia might not be able to convert its loyal Symbian user base 1 to 1 from Symbian to Windows Phone. Boy was Nokia correct in testifying to the SEC and NY Stock Exchange, that this Windows strategy was very risky. They were correct and yes, this risk has fully materialized. The strategy is simply doomed.
This was number 4 in my series of blogs about Nokia's strategy distaster, told in short snippets of one problem at a time, and illustrated with one picture. You may fully use any parts of this blog including the stats and the grraphics.
Previously in the series, I did the lengthy analysis of the risks Nokia identified for the SEC and NY Stock Exchange two years ago in their Form 20-F.
Then I showed in Part 1 - the Nokia smartphone unit sales collapse following Elop Effect
Part 2 - The competition during Elop's tenure - Nokia vs Samsung vs Apple iPhone
Part 3 - the Nokia smartphone sales collapse compared to biggest failures in handset history (Palm, Motorola, Siemens etc)
I will return soon with part 5, trust me, this is a disaster that keeps on giving and giving, but what do you expect, we have truly witnessed a World Record being made in management failure and incompetence. There is plenty of blame to lay on Mr 'Call Me The General' Stephen Elop, the Pretend-Patton Canadian, graduate of McMaster University, previously with Microsoft and now Nokia CEO.
I've already shown you in one picture how Nokia's unit sales that grew faster than the biggest rivals in 2010, grew 53% in just one year in fact, immediately turned into catastrophic decline the moment when the Elop Effect happened in February 2011. I've then shown how Nokia's performance compared to the two main rivals over these past few years, Apple's iPhone and the Samsung series of smartphones. And at the previous blog posting in this series, I showed how the collapse in Nokia market share was in fact, a world record failure in the handset business, far faster than any other comparable market failure, like Palm, Motorola, Siemens, Windows Phone, LG and RIM. Now lets look at how Elop's promised transition ie migration strategy is working out.
A lot of people seem to be celebrating the 4.4 million Lumia smartphone sales number as if its 'good news'. They clearly don't know the industy or Nokia's past. Nokia did 4.4 million smartphones not per quarter, but per every two weeks back before the Elop Effect. The last time Nokia introduced a new Symbian version operating system - like the new Windows Phone 8 right now - was when Nokia introduced Symbian S^3 for Q4 in 2010. How did it do? In the first quarter, it sold 5 million units, led by its flagship, the N8 which sold 4 million units. Now, even as the smartphone market is more than twice as big, Elop's 'magnificent' Microsoft marvels on his Lumia series - after five months of trying, including not one but two new operating system versions and not one but three separate flagships - have yet to match that 5 million sales per quarter.
The 4.4 million seems like a big jump from the miserable Q3 when Nokia managed only 2.9 million Lumia, but bear in mind, that in Q2 of 2012, Nokia sold 4 million Lumia, so in the last 6 months of massive global Nokia/Microsoft Lumia/Windows Phone push, including new carriers announced and new operating systems released, Nokia grew Lumia by.. 10%. yes, a lousy 10% growth for Lumia in the past 6 months while the industry grew in the same period .. get this .. by 57%. You wanna call that a success? I don't, and I won't.
So lets go to the migration ie transition rate then from Symbian to Windows Phone. Elop promised when he released this risky Microsoft strategy in February 2011, that he will achieve 1-to-1 transition from Symbian to Windows Phone. Now we have seen Symbian at its last viable quarter, so its about time to count, did the migration succeed then. Here is the picture:
The above picture may be freely shared
Yeah. The promised transition from Symbian to Windows Phone has not succeeded anywhere near 1-to-1. Its not even doing 1 out of every 2, or even 1 out of every 4. If we measure by unit sales, and ignore the growth in the smartphone industry for the past 2 years, and try to paint this misery in the best possible light for Elop's misguided Microsoftian misadventure, then by unit sales, Nokia sold 28.8 million smarpthones per quarter as the strategy was announced, and today 2.2 million of those smartphones are still on Symbian. Out of the 26.6 million Symbian sales attempted to migrate to Lumia running Windows Phone, there are only 4.4 million that succeeded and 22.2 million loyal Nokia smartphone users on Symbian, that were scared away to buy a rival handset maker's smartphones, Samsungs and others on Android, Apple's iPhones, or Blackberries or whatever others. By unit sales, the failure rate of Elop's Microsoft strategy is 83% only 17% have succeeded. So only one in six existing Nokia customers were migrated successfully to Windows Phone. Thats one way to look at it, the 'rosy' view. How about the reality view? Brace yourself.
If we measure by market share, Nokia had 29% market share when the new strategy was announced. This measure accounts for market growth. So today, Symbian based smartphones only account for 1% of global sales, and Nokia therefore has attempted to transition the 28% of its smartphone customers it had using Symbian to Windows Phone. And now the successfull transition results in 2% market share for Lumia in Q4 and 26% of Nokia loyal smartphone user market share gifted to rivals, in scaring away loyal Nokia users to Android, iOS, Blackberry, bada and others. Now the failure rate of Elop's strategy is a mindboggling 93%. Yes, only 7% of Nokia's attempts to lure Symbian customers to Lumia has succeeded. Out of every 14 attempts to migrate a customer from Symbian to Windows Phone, 13 have run away. Only one in 14 attempts to transition to Lumia has succeeded. You call this strategy good, and worth pursuing?
The independent survey of Lumia owners in America by Yankee Group last year found that four out of ten Lumia owners hated the phones so much, they gave it a rating of 1 out of 5 where 5 is best, 1 is worst. And now we have the Bernstein study of smartphone users by platform, in USA and Europe, which found that only 37% of Windows Phone smartphone owners are willing to make their next smartphone purchase another Windows Phone (most of those are Nokia owners, Nokia has been selling about 75% of all Windows Phone smartphones, the other 'partners' are either completely abandoning the Windows ecosystem like Sony, LG and Dell, or severely cutting down their involvement like HTC or pursuing other platforms like Samsung, or simply no longer providing new handsets for Windows Phone 8 like Huawei and ZTE). Yes, 63% of current Windows Phone owners want desperately to get rid of their phone and replace it with anything else! Compare that to Android which has 75% loyalty or iPhone which has 95% loyalty according to the Bernstein survey. Even poor old beleagured Blackberry has 57% loyalty, far bigger than Windows Phone and look how badly RIM is doing with its current model line. (And yes, in 2010, prior to the Elop Effect, Nokia's Symbian based consumer satisfaction was second highest in the industry, behind only the iPhone. Nokia customers were very satisfied and loyally bought Nokia after Nokia after Nokia).
So lets take a new look at the same graph I prepared, and add the Bernstein finding. This is the best case of how Elop's Windows strategy has going forward, the green part is the only slice that Elop has been able to win over to remain with both Nokia and Windows Phone on his Lumia series.
The above picture may be freely shared
So yes, when we add the severe dissatisfaction with the Windows Phone operating system and Lumia by their first owners, almost two thirds want to get rid of their Lumia and take some other, any other operating system based smartphones instead of their Windows smartphones, on both sides of the Atlantic, then yes, this strategy is utterly doomed, not just failing now, but into the future. Because, look at the 'real picture' ie taking market growth into consideration, the right side graph - market share. Stephen Elop's mad Microsoftian misery has managed to migrate from totally satisfied Symbian Nokia users - Nokia grew smartphone sales 53% from 2009 to 2010 - to now, only one in 20 loyal Nokia Symbian users who were tricked into converting to Windows Phone, both arrived there and is intending to stay. 17 of those 20 have already been scared away and 2 of the remaining 3 are already decided, they will not remain with Lumia series longer. This is the very definition of textbook strategy failure.
The Windows Phone strategy has failed comprehensively. Nokia knew this strategy was extremely risky, they wrote a massive risks assessment, hundreds of itemized risks to the strategy, in their filing to the SEC and New York Stock Exchange two years ago. And Nokia listed various reasons why the transition might not result in a 1-to-1 migration from Symbian to Windows Phone. Those risks have come true, but the carnage to Nokia is worse than anyone could have anticipated. I had issued the most pessimistic forecasts for Nokia's preformance in 2011, and many derided me for those forecasts at the time. Now we can see that my forecasts turned out to be too rosy. The collapse of Nokia's smarpthone business has set a new world record for failure. Even we forecasters had no model to compare it to, nobody had ever failed this totally in any two year period, not in mobile phones, not in cars, not in soft drinks, not in airlines not in personal computers, never in any industry.
Now look at that graph. If this is the 'success level' for Lumia's transition - failing in real terms 93% of the time, or out of every 14 attempts, 13 fail - and of the remaining suckers who took the fool's gold peddled as Nokia Lumia smarpthones, two thirds hate it so much they will buy any other smartphone than Windows Phone next time, why would you think this 'strategy' can somehow turn into a success under Elop and running Windows Phone? No wonder Elop now is letting rumors spread that Nokia is considering Android instead of Windows Phone. No wonder Steve Ballmer at Microsoft has given up on Elop and Nokia, and is proceeding to build his own smartphones. And it is now no surprise that Elop desperately is peddling any story to trick journalists into believing Nokia is ok, such as reclassifying Nokia's S40 based featurephones on his Asha series as if they were smartphones. Sure, I can also call an Etch-a-Sketch a smartphone, it doesn't make it one. Luckily all major analyst houses are rejecting that silly claim.
The simple fact is, that looking at that picture, it is obvious that Elop has failed totally in his primary goal of his strategy. He did not fulfill on his promise. 19 out of 20 loyal Nokia Symbian smartphone customers have either already left, or have already decided not to continue with this unsatisfying smartphone experience. Its about time for the Nokia Board to wake up and fire this Microsoft Muppet.
That was the discussion of the risk that Nokia might not be able to convert its loyal Symbian user base 1 to 1 from Symbian to Windows Phone. Boy was Nokia correct in testifying to the SEC and NY Stock Exchange, that this Windows strategy was very risky. They were correct and yes, this risk has fully materialized. The strategy is simply doomed.
This was number 4 in my series of blogs about Nokia's strategy distaster, told in short snippets of one problem at a time, and illustrated with one picture. You may fully use any parts of this blog including the stats and the grraphics.
Previously in the series, I did the lengthy analysis of the risks Nokia identified for the SEC and NY Stock Exchange two years ago in their Form 20-F.
Then I showed in Part 1 - the Nokia smartphone unit sales collapse following Elop Effect
Part 2 - The competition during Elop's tenure - Nokia vs Samsung vs Apple iPhone
Part 3 - the Nokia smartphone sales collapse compared to biggest failures in handset history (Palm, Motorola, Siemens etc)
I will return soon with part 5, trust me, this is a disaster that keeps on giving and giving, but what do you expect, we have truly witnessed a World Record being made in management failure and incompetence. There is plenty of blame to lay on Mr 'Call Me The General' Stephen Elop, the Pretend-Patton Canadian, graduate of McMaster University, previously with Microsoft and now Nokia CEO.
@Tomasz R:
>> But there's some hope for Nokia - their master Microsofot is planning "Windows Blue" for half of the year. It is supposed to replace both WP8 and Windows 8, and obsolete them (they do it again?). Maybe it's going to have such features.
History repeats itself, obviously. So by next fall we will have a new Windows Phone version, that again provides no proper migration path, again is limited to the hardware current half a year before its release and when it's due the competition again has run away with the next step forward.
So what is this? Osborning WP8 just a month after its release? Pathetic!
Posted by: Tester | January 11, 2013 at 10:26 PM
..another nail for Nokia's coffin:
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode=display&sid=20130106101927687&title=Nokia%3A+Yes%2C+we+decrypt+your+HTTPS+data%2C+but+don%92t+worry+about+it&type=article&order=&hideanonymous=0&pid=1025115#c1025817
http://gigaom.com/2013/01/10/nokia-yes-we-decrypt-your-https-data-but-dont-worry-about-it/
http://gaurangkp.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/nokia-proxy/
Posted by: Arnt Karlsen | January 11, 2013 at 10:28 PM
I just came across this usability study. It another reason why NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE OR TABLET
http://www.thetechstorm.com/2012/11/nielsen-windows-8-usability-disappointing-for-everyone/
Windows 8 is looking more and more DOA
Posted by: John Waclawsky | January 11, 2013 at 11:28 PM
Tomi,
Can you please advise a source for this Bernstein Survey/Study you are referring to? You once mentioned it was reported by Forbes, but I can neither find any reference to this study on Bernstein's, nor on Forbes site? (Most likely I am doing something wrong, but ...)
In general, having some links or sources would be helpful in most articles.
Would appreciate, if you could point to the mentioned report, even if it is a paid study. Thanks!
Posted by: Uwe | January 11, 2013 at 11:33 PM
2012 Global Smartphone Average Sale Price (read and weep if you are not Apple, HTC, Samsung, Moto):
Apple = $618
HTC/Samsung = $310 (half Apple's)
Moto = $298
Sony = $240
RIM = $226 (a bit better than 1/3 Apple's)
Nokia = $178 (half Samsung's, 1/4 Apple's)
Tier 1 Chinese = $175
Tier 2/3 Chinese = $171
Source:http://static.cdn-seekingalpha.com/uploads/2013/1/11/4115211-1357895216521757-Michael-Fu.jpg
Posted by: Baron95 | January 11, 2013 at 11:43 PM
How could Nokia embrace such a historically slow, buggy, insecure, resource hog P(OS)? Surely they knew this going in or are they just dumb. Let's look at "slow" at this time:
In the "right from the horses mouth" department is some insight into how windows 8 boots and ONLY APPEARS to be faster than windows 7 but its just the splash screen metro interface that comes up. If you want to actually do something you still have to wait, and wait :-)
http://www.eightforums.com/windows-8-news/14028-windows-8-disappointing-usability-14.html
and now we are seeing more evidence that the future is android/Linux
http://www.junauza.com/2013/01/how-windows-8-has-opened-up-window-for-linux-world-domination.html
This is just more background data for the accurate conclusion that: NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE OR TABLET
Posted by: John Waclawsky | January 11, 2013 at 11:44 PM
Based on all your research it is crystal clear an incredible harm has been done to Nokia and its shareholders. I read here before the WP7.5 phones are being sold for dump prices thus skewing the numbers. Is there a way you can measure how good the WP8 phones are doing?
@ Lasko "To be fair one should mention that most Symbian releases were somewhat 'feature complete'. I still have a N95 in use and allthough I never received a major update I do not feel lacking anything." I am completely at awe how mobile vendors stop to provide support for their products. I'm not talking about major updates here; I am talking about 2 factors: 1) security updates. Revoked CA certs to name one example, bugs in Gecko/WebKit to name another. 2) reliability updates. If hardware was shipped half broken and a software update can fix this, vendors should release this. Maemo suffered from this but due to the open nature of the platform there was at least 3rd party updates (they recently even updated CA cert due to Turktrust being hacked). It'd be better if vendors themselves dealt with this though.
Posted by: Jeroen | January 12, 2013 at 12:08 AM
More current, up to the minute perspective, on a broken windows 8 and why NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS 8. The Windows 8 P(OS) is increasingly being called Vista 8 and is now getting to be known as a major disaster that even all the extensive Microsoft astroturfing and shilling can not suppress. An interesting question is: given the background of failures in the consumer space by microsoft why did nokia make an exclusive microsoft bet? Are they really that stupid?
http://www.zdnet.com/sorry-microsoft-i-am-breaking-up-with-the-surface-7000009660/
The writing is on the wall NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE OR TABLET
Posted by: John Waclawsky | January 12, 2013 at 12:42 AM
Our troll bragging about the stock price doesn't tell us where it was when Nokia announced the deal with microsoft. The big picture tells a much sadder tale of an investor disaster. The really pathetic aspect of this microsoft astroturfer is that this troll is so stupid he doesn't even know this line of hype is the typical sucker investor call for poorly performing low priced stocks that swing on a few pennies. You know the typical spam: "Hey, buy xxxx it's up 500%, or buy yyy it's up 800%...etc." This is truly comical. This is the greater fool theory... and the fool is doing the microsoft shilling. :-)
Posted by: John Waclawsky | January 12, 2013 at 12:59 AM
@Baron95
Say the same thing with a straight face using numbers of units sold. Say the same thing looking at how much Nokia stock was worth before this failed WP experiment.
Nokia should just come out after Q1 2013 and say that the experiment failed. Move along to something better.
It's the so called Nokia fans who applauded this foolhardy wp venture that are as responsible as elop and gang for the current situation Nokia is in.
To even suggest that Asha is anywhere near S60, even when compared to 5800, is utter rubbish. S60 wasn't very good, but it wasn't bad either compared to the competition at the time. Just like Asha isn't very good compared to the current competition. But pricing plays a very important role as well. For the price Asha phones are sold for, they're good. That's one of the major reasons Lumia line (WP7) phones are selling well now.. Compared to the competition, WP is rubbish. But factor in cost, and it still sells. The only loser in all of this is Nokia.
Posted by: tired | January 12, 2013 at 08:14 AM
@tired:
>> For the price Asha phones are sold for, they're good.For the price Asha phones are sold for, they're good.
I don't think so. Last time I saw one advertised it was for €99.99.
In the same ad, for the same price there was also a low end Android phone.
It had a larger screen, higher screen resolution but a slightly slower CPU.
Of course it also has a significantly better selection of apps.
Sorry, but for me the Ashas are a cheat, nothing more.
Regardless, the report clearly shows that Nokia's entire business is now located at the bottom end of the market. This is clearly not a good sign.
Posted by: Tester | January 12, 2013 at 08:49 AM
@ baron95
Nokia Investor hate Elop, Microsoft and all the Window Crappy Phones
Pre 11.2.2011 Nokia was around 8.5 Euro, now is bouncing with tricky Elop announcement at 3.5 euro
Nokia pre Elop had a decent strategy, decent product, and was the king of a market that experience +50% a year ... Nokia Investors could now as rich as the Apple Investor ... but the trick Americans fund with 15% got control of Nokia, they placed Elop, and use him for destroy Nokia, destroy Nokia shareholder value, for the good of Microsoft and othe4 Americans funds interest
Now ... please you no sense propaganda do on a Microsoft web space
Tchuss
E_lm_70
Posted by: elm70 | January 12, 2013 at 08:54 AM
Tomi, impressive blog with accurate analyisis and predictions. I'm reading it for more than a year now and at first i had great doubts about your forecasts, but now i can see that all of your predictions come very accurately true. Congratulations, you're doing an amazing job and thank you for providing it for free.
I have one suggestion about the formatting of the archived entries, i would like to see just titles with links to posts, but all of them. In the current form it is impossible to find an article from the past year. Would that be possible? Maybe it requires an update to the site blog software, but it would be extremely useful. I find myself wanting to direct others to some specific article of yours, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to find it. So the simple solution for this is a page that would list all your topics along with a date and a link. Hopefully you'll read this and be able to improve the navigation of the archived articles.
Regards!
Posted by: daz | January 12, 2013 at 10:24 AM
@Baron95
NOK Feb. 2011 - 11,06/share
NOK Jan. 2013 - 3,75/share
Yes, investors truly love Windows (Phone).
NOK Feb. 2011 - 28,8% marketshare
NOK Jan. 2013 - 2,8% marketshare
Yes, consumers truly like Lumia.
Windows Feb. 2008 - 12% marketshare
Windows Jan. 2013 - 1,5% marketshare
Yes, consumers truly like Windows (Phone).
Percentages are worth nothing without a reference.
In 2012 220,000 people have been killed by murderes, +20,000 in constrast to 2012, or +10%.
In 2012 3 people have been killed by tarantulas, +1 in contrast to 2012, or +33%.
Tarantulas are obviously becoming more dangerous than murderes.
Posted by: Lasko | January 12, 2013 at 10:41 AM
@Baron95 You could also say that Nokia Stocks went up 180% when Nokia said that they might want to look at other OS then Windows Phone.
They said that it would not be impossible to make an Android phone in the future.
Posted by: Henrik | January 12, 2013 at 12:34 PM
@Baron95
"Windows Phone 8 will be successful because of Windows 8 and Windows RT, the Windows ecosystem".
I had a really hard laugh on this. Windows 8 marketshare ~1,5%, forced by OEM sales only, declining ~20%, Windows RT 0,005%, also declining.
But you are right - Windows Phone aligns perfect with this 'synergy'. Marketshare 2%, also declining.
Posted by: Lasko | January 12, 2013 at 02:29 PM
I just noticed the BBC thinks that ....how should I put it? ...Oh yes, NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE OR EVEN WINDOWS 8
http://www.wpcentral.com/windows-8-and-windows-phone-snubbed-bbc
The industry is concluding what all of us on this blog already know: after years and years of effort by microsoft, they get the same, annoying to the trolls, result:
NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE OR TABLET
According to McAfee, windows 8 is likely to only be popular for viruses and malware, this truly funny
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/malware-botnet-NFC-ransomware-McAfee,20033.html
Posted by: Duke | January 12, 2013 at 03:18 PM
I am not a tech expert but i genuinely regretted replacing my Symbian with lumia 710.I couldn't usb tether,i couldn't use a proper pc suite and many other things apart from creating sms drafts.I was simply fooled into thinking it would be a step forward !(not backward!!!)
Really how were they imagining a happy user transition ?
Posted by: Saswat | January 12, 2013 at 05:05 PM
Here is a short article from Fortune/CNN which gives the Bernstein Research numbers from their survey of smart phone users.
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/01/07/apple-not-a-premium-consumer-brand/
75% of Android users plan to repurchase another Android device, 58% of BlackBerry users plan on doing similarly, while just 37% of Windows phone owners intend on sticking with the platform.
Posted by: Eurofan | January 12, 2013 at 11:51 PM
More perspective on Window P(OS). The link titles say it all :-)
http://www.zdnet.com/analyst-windows-8-hardware-overpriced-and-offers-no-clear-benefit-in-switching-from-ios-or-android-7000009475/
Also some news from Amazon:
http://www.zdnet.com/amazons-top-selling-laptop-doesnt-run-windows-or-mac-os-it-runs-linux-7000009433/
Again, NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE OR TABLET
Posted by: Duke | January 13, 2013 at 05:57 AM
@N9: The Android version of the Linux kernel has extensive customizations to work with the Android system, which don't come from Linux. Especially WakeLocks, for a program to signal to the kernel that it shouldn't go to sleep, but there are others. Android Linux is very different from the GNU/Linux that Nokia was using.
To get a phone SoC to work with both Android Linux and GNU/Linux, they required separate drivers to be written. And Qualcomm, especially, is uninterested in helping GNU/Linux.
It's possible to get a GNU/Linux system running on an Android Linux kernel, but it takes a lot of work. Only the people at Canonical seem to be doing that work, when they're making Ubuntu for cell phones.
Likewise, there are people working to merge the Android Linux kernel into the normal Linux kernel, and eliminate the differences. Linus Torvalds estimates that it will take about 5 years. It's not easy.
Posted by: R | January 13, 2013 at 08:28 AM
R: bullshit, android linux kernel changes have already been merged to the standard linux in prevous year.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/19/linux-kernel-3-3-merged-android-code/
Posted by: daz | January 13, 2013 at 08:52 AM
// 75% of Android users plan to repurchase another Android device,
// 58% of BlackBerry users plan on doing similarly, while just
// 37% of Windows phone owners intend on sticking with the platform.
And 95% for iPhone. These numbers seems to be very reasonable.
75% for Android, the major platform, is about the same as overall android marketshare, exactly what it should be.
For a smaller platform, a high retention rate ***is essential to survive***
This not the case for WP, they cannot hold even those souls that they managed to trap.
the higher NOK goes, the better short it is.
Posted by: newbie reader | January 13, 2013 at 03:49 PM
@daz: R: bullshit, android linux kernel changes have already been merged to the standard linux in prevous year.
Actually standard linux only merged enough code to *boot* *the* *device*.
Fast 3D? Accelerated video playback? Decent battery life? Fuhgeddaboudit!
It's possible to run GNU/Linux system on top of the Android kernel, but it's not trivial. And the biggest hurdle is not technical but political: if Android stops working with Qualcomm's stuff then, obviously, it's Qualcomm's problem and Qualcomm will fix it. But if Meego or Ubuntu crashes this then Qualcomm can say that it never intended to support such use - and that's it.
Posted by: khim | January 13, 2013 at 08:13 PM
@R :
Android kernel is a fork from mainline kernel and as such very similar. And, yes, it has features which are only gradually moved back into mainline, but this does not imply that separate drivers need to be written. In the worst case, this means that porting drivers to mainline takes a small amount of work. It is hard to see how this could have been a problem.
@khim:
Yes, but we are not talking about how hard it is for some random hacker to use Android with a mainline kernel, but how hard it would have been for Nokia to port Meego to a new platform which is already supported by Android
Posted by: N9 | January 14, 2013 at 07:10 AM