Why Europe Is So Critical to Nokia in Smartphones: The Symbian S^3 Sales Pattern in Q4

IDC just reported yesterday that Nokia had fallen from 39% market share in Europe to 11% in smartphones, lost literally three out of every four customers they had in Europe just six months ago. The biggest in Europe in smartphones is now Samsung at 22%, with iPhone number 2 at 21%, third is HTC at 14%, fourth is RIM also at 14% and down in fifth place lingers Nokia smartphones at 11%. I suggested Nokia would fall globally to about a quarter of its market but that would take a year. They are failing much faster under Stephen Elop's misguided mismanagement and in their biggest and most profitable market they have lost in less than six months three quarters of their market already. The situation at Nokia is far worse than any of us could predict.

To give some more understanding of Nokia smartphones, I did a bit of very complex and time-consuming multi-dimensional optimization modelling on their quarterly results data and some other data points we have received. We can now paint a very accurate picture of what Nokia was like in Q4 of 2010, the last quarter before the Elop Effect happened on Feb 11 and destroyed Nokia's value.

This type of analysis was not possible until Nokia released its profitability information by division this July, but now we can calculate the actual contribution of not just overall Symbian handsets to all handsets of Nokia (previously some Nokia smartphones vs dumbphones info was only aggregated into one handsets unit). And why I can only do it for Q4, is that in the Q4 2010 quarterly results investor call, CEO Stephen Elop confirmed the sales number of 5 million Symbian S^3 handsets sold in Q4. If we had that official number for Q1 or Q2, I could do similar analysis for newer quarters too. But here is the full picture of Nokia smartphone and dumbphone sales.

So to be clear, we know as certain numbers the unit sales, average sales prices, sales revenues, and profitability of the dumbphones/featurephones (ie non-smartphones) and separately the smartphones. The smartphones side includes both older 'uncompetitive' Symbian S60 based smartphones, and the new, initially VERY competitive and user-friendly Symbian S^3 smartphones that were selling like hot cakes until the Elop Effect killed the success of all Nokia phones, not just Symbian S60 but S^3 and even Nokia branded dumbphones.

What we did not know is the split of Symbian S^3 vs older Symbian S60 in units sold, revenues, average prices or profits. We furthermore did not know the regional split of all the phone types dumbphones, and the two types of smartphones. But some patient multidimensional modelling will get the numbers as we have some critical data points added, the 5 million S^3 sales number and now the profits by divisions.

This is Nokia Q4 of 2010, the quarter when Symbian's new S^3 was released (led by the N8):

Type . . . . . . . . . . . . Units  . . . . . . ASP . . . . . . Revenues . . . . Profitability . . . . Operating Profit
Dumbphones . . . . . . 95.4 Million . . 43 Euro  . . . 4.1B Euro . . . . 11.5%  . . . . . . .    470M Euro
Symbian S60 . . . . . . 23.3 Million . . 128 Euro . . .3.0B Euro . . . .   9.3% . . . . . . . .   276M Euro
Symbian S^3 . . . . . .   5.0 Million . . 284 Euro . .  1.4B Euro . . . . 19.1% . . . . . . . .    277M Euro

All smartphones  . . . 28.3 Million . . 155 Euro . . . 4.4B Euro . . . . 12.5%  . . . . . . .    548M Euro
All Nokia phones . . 123.7 Million . .   69 Euro . . . 8.5B Euro . . . . 12.0%  . . . . . . . 1,1B Euro

So, how did the so-called 'failing' Symbian S^3 do then? It sold 5 million copies in one quarter - thats second only to Apple's iPhone 4 and far better than any other new OS version release, or new OS launch or new smartphone model line launched ever - including more sold than Samsung's latest Galaxy.

How did it contribute to Nokia? It jumped Nokia's smartphone average sales price so much, that Symbian S^3 smartphones earned on average 2.2 times more than other Symbian based smartphones. Nokia's new S^3 average sales price gets it in the price range of HTC and Blackberry (while still obviously half that of Apple's iPhone). Just as a note, Microsoft's head of Windows Mobile, Andy Lees, said in July to Microsoft developers that the average sales price of Windows Mobile based smarpthones is only 200 dollars (vs 284 Euros for Nokia's Symbian S^3 which is about 411 US dollars) and that would be down to between $100 and $150 next year. So Nokia had a huge growth engine in Symbian's latest S^3, which it swaps for an undesirable OS whose boss says their prices are being nearly halved in the next year. But I digress.

The profitability of Nokia's new Symbian S^3 is the most interesting tidbit - double the profitabilty compared to older Symbian S60. So Nokia profitability for S^3 was 19.5% in Q4 of 2011. And now a few comparisons: Of their Fortune Global 500 ranking in 2011 (which reflects their latest full annual results in 2010) we find Samsung corporation (includes much more than phones, obviously from televisions to microchips) was 10%. LG (similarly multi-business conglomerate) had profitability of 2%. RIM the Blackberry maker had a profitability of 17%. Nokia Corporation (including all types of handsets and its networking and Navteq units) earned a measily 4% profit. But CEO Stephen Elop discovered a true jewel in his crown, in Symbian S^3, that produced highly desirable Nokia Symbian smartphones on a 19.5% profitability! This is pure gold. And in just the first roll-out quarter, Nokia migrated 17.7% of its total smartphone production to this new hot profit engine. No wonder the smartphone unit profits surged 64% - yes, 64% in just one quarter.

I have explained here earlier, that if you manage to grow sales, grow average sales prices and grow profits in the same quarter, that is absolute proof that you are onto a hit product. Normally to get increase in sales you do it with either an decrease in price or with added marketing expenses (which reduces profitability) but with Nokia Q4, they had the very rare trifecta, increased unit sales, increased average prices and increased sales. So undeniably Nokia found itself with a big global hit in the N8 and its siblings that ran the latest version of Symbian S^3. And anyone who claims Symbian was not competitive with Android or Windows (either version) or RIM/Blackberry or the iPhone or bada or Palm/WebOS etc, is simply not dealing with facts. The OLD version of Symbian ie S60 was not competing well, it was struggling in the market and seeing declining sales and declining average prices (and declining profits). But Nokia's latest OS version and smartphones running on it, were definitely a hit globally. Now lets see where those phones were sold:

Nokia Handset Units Sold by Type:
Region . . . S^3 units . . . S60 units  . . dumbphones . . Total
Europe . . . 3.7 Million . . 8.9 Million . . 20.9 Million . . . 33.5 Million
MEA . . . .  0.4 Million . . 1.5 Million . . 20.3 Million . . . 22.2 Million
China . . . . 0.3 Million . . 7.8 Million . . 13.8 Million . . . 21.9 Million
APAC . . .  0.2 Million . . 2.6 Million . . 28.5 Million . . . 31.3 Million
N Am . . . . 0.2 Million . . 0.8 Millon . .   1.6 Million . . .   2.6 Million
LatAm . . . 0.2 Million . . 1.5 Million . . 10.4 Million . . . 12.2 Million
TOTAL . .  5.0 Million .  23.1 Million . . 95.5 Million . . 123.7 Million

(Note all totals match almost exactly with Nokia Q4 2010 results). A few definitions just to be clear, we use Nokia official classification so MEA is Middle East and Africa. APAC is Asia Pacific which includes Australia/Oceania. Then when we take the above numbers, and multiply them by the average sales prices as per the above, we get the following split of revenues:

Nokia Handset Revenues By Type:
Region . . . S^3 revenues . . . S60 revenues  . . dumbphones . . . Total revenues
Europe . . . 1.0B Euro . . . . . 1.1B Euro . . . . .    900 M Euro . . . 3.1B Euro
MEA . . . .     113 M Euro . . .   193 M Euro . .    873 M Euro . . . 1.2B Euro
China . . . .     93 M Euro . . . 1.0B Euro . . . . .   591 M Euro . . . 1.7B Euro
APAC . . .      44 M Euro . . .    333 M Euro . . 1.2B Euro . . . . .  1.6B Euro
N Am . . . .    66 M Euro . . .       98 M Euro . .     69 M Euro . . .    233 M Euro
LatAm . . .     69 M Euro . . .     198 M Euro . .    447 M Euro . . .   715 M Euro
TOTAL . .  1.4 B Euro . . . . . 3.0B Euro . . . . .  4.1B Euro . . . . . 8.5B Euro

(note again, all totals match very closely the Q4 results for 2010). And now lets add in the profitability of the three units to get total profits by each region:

Nokia Handset Profits By Type:
Region . . . S^3 profits . . . S60 profits  . . dumbphones . . Total profits
Europe . . . 200 M Euro . . 106 M Euro . . 104 M Euro . . . 409 M Euro
MEA . . . .    22 M Euro . .  18 M Euro . .  100 M Euro . . . 140 M Euro
China . . . .   18 M Euro . .  93 M Euro . . .  68 M Euro . . . 179 M Euro
APAC . . .      8 M Euro . .  31 M Euro . . .141 M Euro . . . 181 M Euro
N Am . . . .   13 M Euro . .    9 M Euro . . .   8 M Euro . . .   30 M Euro
LatAm . . .    13 M Euro . .  18 M Euro . . . 51 M Euro . . .   83 M Euro
TOTAL . . . 274 M Euro . . 275 M Euro . .  472 M Euro . . . 1.02B Euro

(once again the totals match very closely with those in the Q4 quarterly results). So, we can see now that the new Symbian S^3 was sold primarily in Europe, where 29% of all Nokia branded smartphones were Symbian S^3 phones. This is also by far Nokia's biggest market for total sales and biggest for Nokia handset revenues and profits. In it, the S^3 alone generated half of Nokia's total profit generated in Europe, while reflecting only 11% of all Nokia branded handsets sold in Europe. And this market we learn from IDC has utterly crashed due to the Elop Effect, and worse - this is precisely the market where Nokia's new N9 and other MeeGo handsets would be most welcomed and Elop refuses to sell them there. Total madness indeed. Europe was 40% of Nokia's total handset sales profits, and Symbian S^3 generated half of that in Q4. The Europeans love Nokia style, Nokia brand smartphones and were buying them madly before the Elop Effect. As the Elop Effect only affects Symbian phones, Nokia could avoid the reseller boycott by releasing the MeeGo based N9 and its siblings now, and recover much of that lost sales. The S^3 units in Q4 alone delivered 200 Million Euros of profits. If Nokia were only to recover that sales in Europe with the N9 (which costs more than 284 Euros) by releasing it widely in Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Spain etc (yes, Elop refuses to sell the N9 in any of those big European markets) the profits generated by the premium phone would nearly eliminate the losses generated by Nokia in Q2 !!!! This would be Europe alone, not to mention all the other regions that should get the N9, not just exotic tiny Nokia markets like haha, Kazakhstan (who are one of those 29 launch countries for the N9. How mad is Elop?)

But a few interesting observations from the above tables. In addion to Europe, the Symbian S^3 had captured 21% of Nokia smartphone sales in the Middle East and Africa region, the third best migration region for Symbian S^3, but quite surprising is the second best migration region - North America, where Symbian S^3 had taken 23% of all Nokia branded smartphone sales in Q4. Yes, obviously this is by far the smallest market, but even in North America the S^3 was driving a Nokia recovery. And we know the China region took to S^3 in a big way in Q1 but we do not have the data to calculate the exact contributions by region for Q1 unfortunately.

Two thirds of Nokia Symbian S60 sales were from Europe and the China region. So why not release the N9 in China then? We hear now that Nokia franchise stores - Nokia flagship stores in China - are suffering from the collapse of Nokia Symbian sales so badly, that they now have resorted to selling rival branded phones! Imagine MacDonald's selling Burger King branded burgers under the Yellow Arches? Thats how bad the Elop Effect has hit China. Why not release the N9 now, immediately, widely, globally?

And smarptohnes in Europe? Of Nokia's total corporate profits earned in any business in any market by any type of product, the smartphones business out of Europe generated 30% of Nokia's total profits in Q4 of 2010 - and out of that, the new Symbian S^3 generated two thirds of that profit out of Europe's smartphones. When we add China's smarpthones - these two regions, Europe and China, and their smarpthone business, not dumbphone business - generated 43% of Nokia's total profits in Q4. This is the 'Pareto Rule' ie the 80:20 rule, so as long as Nokia is doing well in Europe and China (and specifically smartphones there) - all of Nokia is fine, no matter how well Nokia does in any other part of its business, networks, dumbpohnes or Navteq, and in any other regions - North America, Latin America, Africa, rest of Asia, Oceania - it matters nothing if the smartphones business in Europe and China is crashing. Very illuminating indeed. It also gives clues to how quickly Nokia could be turned around if some idiot CEO stopped sabotaging his own sales in Europe and China.

And back to the S^3 premium smartphones. Using the current IDC numbers, Nokia's new S^3 had created a surge not just globally, but specifically in Europe. And ignoring all other Symbian S60 sales - the S^3 handsets alone had taken almost 15% of Europe - and thus S^3 alone would have been bigger than RIM or HTC or any other smarpthone brands in Europe except Apple and Samsung. And Nokia total Symbian sales towered over Apple and Samsung as recently as Q4, when in Nokia's biggest market - and the world's biggest smarpthone sales region then and now (Europe still sells more smarpthones than North America even now in Q2 although the gap is closing) - Nokia Symbian sales were far bigger than Apple AND Samsung - combined!

So now we know. Symbian was not dead. It had a strong Phoenix moment of recovery in Q4, when Symbian S^3 established a Nokia record for most sales of a new handset and new OS version, when three Nokia S^3 handsets (only one, N8, sold for the full quarter) produced a jump of 7% in Nokia branded smartphone sales, reversed a Nokia-pattern quarterly decline of 7% in average prices that had held true for as far as one can remember but rather produced a 14% jump in ASP (thus creating a 21% jump in average prices over where they should have been without S^3); and this in turn produced what must be a Nokia record (we do not have historical data to know for sure) of 64% jump in profits for the smartphone unit. And while Phoenix died flying too close to the sun, the Nokia Symbian S^3 was not dying, it was killed - by its master, the new CEO.

So what was Nokia S^3 for the corporation and brand new CEO Stephen Elop in his first quarter when he was in charge? Symbian's brand new OS version was in only 4% of all phones sold by Nokia. They were an instant hit and generated 12% of total Nokia handset revenues in their first quarter during which only 3 models had the software and only one of the three handsets was sold for the full quarter. And of Nokia total profits in the quarter? A massive 22% of Nokia's total profits came out of those mere 4% of total Nokia branded phones sold that had the S^3 operating system from Symbian. This is genuinely a 'Goose that lays Golden Eggs' It is not just a new cash cow, it is your profit engine right there. 4% of devices produce 22% of your total profits. This brand new OS and its brand new phones are the heroes of Nokia that the brand new CEO inherited. Any other reasonably intelligent CEO would have celebrated this team and its amazing new software and the brand new phones, and rushed to promote and celebrate their success, to quickly spread S^3 to all Nokia smartphones - not to fire the programmers and put an end their successful operating system.

Of course if the new CEO is not interested in Nokia's best interest, and wants to kill Symbian no matter what kind of success it can generate, and wants to replace the world's bestselling OS with the best ecosystem with the world's least-selling smartphone OS with the weakest ecosystem to be adopted by Nokia instead, then that CEO would release memos and decisions causing an Elop Effect to destroy his own products and their success. That CEO would have to be a delusional psycopath and he would not be working in Nokia's best interests but rather, in the best interests of say, Microsoft. But such a lunatic CEO would only be possible in a Hollywood movie of an alternate universe. If you look at the above numbers - and Nokia's CEO and CFO had these numbers in February when he made those fatal Elop Effect decisions - you will see that you are sitting on a pile of gold in Symbian S^3 - if normally Symbian is able to sell at prices only roughly in the price of an SonyEricsson featurephone, and suddenly you have a hit phone series selling in the prices of far more expensvie smartphones of the HTC and Samsung and other Android phones - and the Blackberry - and you have such a highly desirable new product range which jumps your profits by 68% - that is success by any measure.

What you do, is spread it to the max, not kill it. You reward and promote the engineers who managed that turn-around, you don't go firing them! No wonder morale plummetted totally after Elop's February madness. But thats another story. I wanted to share the numbers as this is the kind of stuff I do on my vacation haha.. A good multidimensional statistical problem haha, I love that, its relaxation for me. Feel free to share the above numbers and please quote TomiAhonen Consulting as the source for those numbers which are not directly from Nokia quarterly results.

Comments

[apollo_dev_team]

@n900lover or n900lever:

I could see Felipe from internal Nokia contact list^^. As I said Meego was great thing but when it comes to mass production related problems, it sucks like hell. Compared to Felipe, I don't have so much time to blog and my line manager doesn't allow me to discuss all company's related works with the public. But all of the questions about Meego have a simple answer: the result or achievement.

Either Meego people inside Nokia didn't achieve properly or the Meego's upper managerment can't convince Nokia boards to keep their faith in Meego. The first is execution problem and the second is internal politic problem.

@karlim:

nice observation, however, those guys might still have the Nokia stoks ;-)

[n900lover]

karlim:

The meme that meego/linux can't be ported to new hw was reiterated several times here before I volunteered to correct the nonsense. Sorry for spoiling the party with doze of reality.

Anyway, it is funny to see people to trash nokia Q4/10 results at length and then conclude that the way to go could be (or even is!) ... wait for it ... wp7. Because wp7 has stellar performance not in just one quarter but in all of them!

[Asko]

@apollo_dev_team: "But all of the questions about Meego have a simple answer: the result or achievement."

Yes, we have already seen the results and archievements of Elop on the Symbian, Meego and Windows Phone. It is time to let go Elop, and hire a real and skillful CEO for Nokia.

[EL]

@n900lover,

"The meme that meego/linux can't be ported to new hw was reiterated several times here before I volunteered to correct the nonsense"

I would not dispute the technicality of the statement, I am sure it is doable. However Nokia's track record in doing just that, pre-Elop, is not confidence inspiring at all. I noted OMAP3 with Meego, which maybe explanable, but ARM11 on Symbian is another matter. You may argue that Symbian is slated EOL so Nokia didn't bother to move on, but if it's not hard, just do it already. There is still 5 years before 2016. ARM11 was old last year, before Symbian was announceed EOL.

I am a religious believer of the 80/20 rule. My professionall job is to estimate professional effort and quote prices - I learnt the hard way. Listening to supremely capable technical guys giving hero quotes - "yeah it's simple, not hard, take a couple of days blah blah" they then tell you something is "80% done, with a couple of minor issues" after 3 days, only I have to wait 3 weeks before the remaining 20% is completed. So when I hear that something is not hard, - I am not going to hold my breath until said work is actually done.

Just in the past 24 hours, you have gone from calling me ignorant (not literally) for saying Harmatton is not Meego, only to admit that there is still a Meego/harmattan dilemma. This is exatly what I am talking about here. It looks like thousands of man days to make a version of Linux that Intel and Nokia envisioned when they announce the Meego program. Making it 100% API compatible sounds like a bridging step to me, not the strategic destination. (I'd like to be corrected if my understanding is wrong) "Not gargantic task" is neither here nor there until those thousands of man days materialized.

I am slightly taken aback that you said Intel SoC on phones are always supposed to be years away. I do not think that Intel would want to announce Meego in 2010, with the deliberate plan to only enter the market "years" later. (it has already been 18 months and counting). This would be a free gift to their ARM competitors, if Meego turns out to be good and the only manufacturers capable of producing chips are Qualcomms, TI and Nvidias of the world.

Perhaps Intel was content to just make Meego netbooks for a few years and gift the smartphone markets to their direct competitors. That sounds implausible because Intel should know the Meego netbook cannot thrive on it's own, it can only sell as a bundled ecosystem with smartphones. Therefore, should Meego netbook succeeds, then the Meego smartphone market would also be huge and it would not absolutely stupid for Intel to not make a play there day 1. The obvious risk is ARM can erode Intel in the netbook space before Intel can invade ARM's smartphone space.

If you can articulate what Intel appeared to be thinking back in 2010, please enlighten me.

[dookie]

Q4 was the bursting of the huge balloon of hype that had been inflated from Q2/2009: Qt, Qt Creator, Open Source Symbian, faked growth and dynamics of the ecosystem (i.e. activities of the Symbian Foundation), Ovi bullshit... etc. They are canned now.

The steam just ran out of the hype machine and the spin doctors who ran it. It is not more complicated than that.

The facts are that Nokia lost its shares quickly and it is losing it faster than ever!

PS. I wonder why you developers are blaming Win7.. blame rather the bad tools and IDEs! And the tools are not even bad.. Carbide was a nice C++ environment for Symbian development.

[Anon]

I used to enjoy this blog but it has become repetitive and bitter. What a shame.

[Donald]

Europe's market is very broad, of course Europe is very important for Nokia.

[Pino]

@Leebase: I Speak for myself, and my daily experience of using a Nokia N8 and N95, I never had an antenna issue, bugs, display false color, or loss of a phone call, this results is the day - day for mobile phone function, calls, maps, weather reports, take a shot here o there with excellent quality, some music,email, sometime a game, very few apps, there is no physical time to take care of the thousands apps!-All devices are flawed, the iconic iPhone has had them since launch, his bigger example, the severe failure of the antenna! remember:apple antenna gate, however I do not remember Apple attacks as deep a those received Nokia-Symbian-Meego.
Microsoft Window I experienced more 30 years waiting for a decent OS, what we have today?, Window 7(good, with embed/added unwanted WMP - IE).
Critics Nokia-Symbian antigens should use Android as a model, Nokia has introduced a few days ago Belle, and as critics say now that Belle is very "Androised". bla bla.. obviuosly this is not right! Why yesterday: Yes, but today: Not. o_O

[Victor Szulc]

"If porting Meego (Harmattan or otherwise) is relatively easy to port to other SoC architecture already, as suggested by the advocates, it really needs to be done pronto on modern multicore SoCs by whoever wants to pick up Meego after Nokia. S/W cannot live without competitive processor hardware."

Exactly... Problem is, it's NOT that easy, as evidenced by the two year old OMAP 36 chipset that the N9 is running.
(Then again, porting it to a modern dualcore CPU would result in another 6-12 months delay which would be unacceptable)

The original plan back in 2010 was I believe, to launch Meego on Intels spiffy new Atom SOC. But Intels development as well as the problems with porting everything to a brand new architecture would take much longer than originally imagined. That's probably what was behind Kai Oistamo's "three devices in 2013" comment.

And porting Meego to a newer Cortex A9/A15 chipset wouldn't save much time in comparison, so this is why the WP7 option, where Microsoft together with Qualcomm is developing the OS and drivers, started to make sense for Kai Oistamo and the rest of Nokias executives.

Really, none of this is very complicated, so I assume its stubbornnes combined with ignorance that makes N900lover, Peter & co. to long for their beloved Meego: An operating system that hasn't grown much beyond vaporware for all practical purposes.

If Meego was really such an amazing OS, you'd think that there would be plenty of tablets and cellphones running it, no?
After all, Linux is so easy to port to different architectures, right?

In reality, beyond a couple of TV-recorders and the odd netbook and tablet that is practically impossible to get a hold of (not that there has been much interest in it at all) there is Z-E-R-O commercial interest in using Meego for consumer products. That's quite telling, considering that we're talking about an OS that's FREE to use.

[Victor Szulc]

@Karlim
"And then Peter, n900lover, eurofan and the rest of the bunch jump on a completely irrelevant sideline to this Tomi's post (which was all about Nokia Q4 2010/Symbian resugence)"

Good job at keeping them on topic ;)
People are also forgetting, that even IF Symbian had somehow gotten a comeback in an alternative universe, Nokia would still have had to change their operating system because of its age and bloated codebase.
The bloated mess that Symbian has become, is why even simple updates, like the browser update to the N8 takes 6-12 months to push out.

Ever wondered why even the newest Nokias, the 700, come with the relatively ancient ARM11 CPU/architecture?
(The same architecture that was dated last year, when they put it in the underpowered N8s-C7s)

It's because Symbian has become so bloated, that Nokia has pretty much given up porting it to a modern SOC. Just read up what Nokias own engineers were saying in articles about Symbian earlier this year.

@900lover
"The meme that meego/linux can't be ported to new hw was reiterated several times here before I volunteered to correct the nonsense."

Eh, and you corrected it exactly how? By writing your opinion and posting a link to a disgruntled engineers blog?

Well, using your standards of evidence, I'd like to correct the ridiculous claim that the earth is round...

Everybody can look out their window, and with their own eyes see that it's flat.

Here's an expert!
http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/

Now provide some proper evidence to your claims, or hush up while the grownups are talking!

"Anyway, it is funny to see people to trash nokia Q4/10 results at length and then conclude that the way to go could be (or even is!) ... wait for it ... wp7. Because wp7 has stellar performance not in just one quarter but in all of them!"

Symbian had reached the end of the line, while WP7 has just been launched (barely). Nokia took WP7 because of its potential.

And you're forgetting that WP7 has only been introduced in a handful of countries, isn't even a year old, and haven't had its real introduction. You won't see that till later this year, when the next round of handsets featuring Mango is out.

And despite all of this, WP7 is allready much more impressive than what iOS or Android were like at less than a year old. The growth in the ecosystem has been very impressive, and the OS itself is steadily gaining speed, mindshare and marketshare.

[peter]

@Victor Szulc, you spoke like an expert while actually you are not though you might still think you are.

1. All OS are not new born including your claimed WP7
Meego<-Maemo<-Linux<-Unix
Symbian Belle<-Symbian Anna<-Symbian ^3 iOS<-Mac OS X<-Unix,
Android<-Linux<-Unix
WebOS<-Linux<-Unix
WP7.5<-WP7<-WCE<-Windows<-Dos<-CP-M8

2. All OS Core codebase is tiny

3. "Bloated" OS codebase belong to Device Drivers
Symbian has biggest codebase means it supports the most wide range of devices.
It is an advantage.

4. WP7 GUI is based on DirectX which heavily relies on GPU performance to render UI elements
Game developers use XNA to talk with DirectX
App developers use Silverlight plug-in which is hosted within .net Platform (like Android's JavaVM) which talks with DirectX.
So WP7 is fundamentally slow, consumes more battery juice.

Its tiles screen layout is not well recongized among consumers that's why is had sluggist sales among all smartphones including your claimed OLD Symbian smartphones.

Active tiles consumes a lot battery juice for doing nothing meaningful. Nokia Meego N9 does it smartly by using active notification/apps/tasks screen.

5. Browser is the king in nowadays
Meego/Android/iOS all support html5 except ie9
ie9 is focused on non-open silverlight but left behind in html5

6. location based services are shooting to the moon
Nokia owns biggets maps service (navteq) and has the best GPS naviagetion apps from nokia beta lab which can now run on all symbians, Meego, iOS (via html5). given the cheap flash memory, one can easily pre-load maps across the world while save the expensive wireless data fee.

8. 12M pixels Carl-zeis wide angle lens
on nokia n8, is the best camera on all smartphones

9. Ecosystem
Nokia has the biggest ecosystem: ovi store, comes with music, maps, carrier payments, localized apps (not just localized lanaguage but services targeted to local markets), carrier channels
WP7 the smallest one

-----------------------------
Nokia owns so many advantages, there is no reason why Elop dumped Symbian and Meego on 2/11/2011.
It will cause nokia investors $160B losss if nokia won't fire Elop.
It betrayed billions nokia loyal consumers, carriers, distributors and app developers.

Conlusion: Elop/Weber/Jorma have to be fired and sued in Finnish Court immediately.

[peter]

Here you may order Nokia Meego N9 in USA
http://www.expansys-usa.com/top20/

[karlim]

Ooh Peter. You are so funny and annoying at the same time. With your "Conlusion: Elop/Weber/Jorma have to be fired and sued in Finnish Court immediately" and all other stuff.

"nokia investors $160B losss" really? 160B loss in what currency? Drachmas or rubles?

And as I said in the comment before:

" Peter, n900lover, eurofan and the rest of the bunch jump on a completely irrelevant sideline to this Tomi's post (which was all about Nokia Q4 2010/Symbian resugence), and start pouting about what a great thing Meego/N9 is. Based on a few videos/1-2hr handling impressions from bloggers and without even touching a device..."

I'll include Eeredani Star or whatever to it, just sayin "...you are completely ignoring the huge holes in his argument that Victor and Baron exposed. I guess because those facts make your whole argument how Nokia was doing great before Elop came along to crash like a house of cards. And you'll better ignore it then face the facts"

Btw. Tomi included.

@Peter, @n900lover, @eurofan and @eerendi star - when faced with the facts, relevant to this post, about NOkia/Symbian Q4. Provided by Victor and baron with hard facts that are contrary to your stupid conspiracy theory - it seems you have shut up and ran away. Then again started to deflect things to irrelevant stuff about N9/Meego...

For now it looks pathetic

[SoVatar]

@karlim:
You are referring to hard facts provided by Victor and baron, however I seemed to have missed these hard facts. Can you please point / quote exactly to the hard facts you are referring to?
Thank you very much.

[karlim]

@SoVatar

Tuche.

Some of them are hard facts, some are well backed theories that sound at least as plausible as Tomi's theories. I also followed that link to blog Victor pointed us to

Facts:

Fact. Symbian 1/S60 sales started crashing in Q4 - Nokia sold 3 mill less of them then in Q3

Fact. Nokia N8 was at least twice as expensive as Sym 1 phones (Theory - very little chance of cannibalization from Sym 1/S60)

Fact. Nokia said that N8 preorders were highest in history (Theory - at least 1 million prorders before Q4 started)

Fact. There is at x-to at least 6 weeks lag period between what Nokia booked as sales and what end customers (you and me and the rest) bought. (Theory - by Feb.11th most Nokia sales for Q1 were booked)

Fact. Q4 Christmas Holiday quarter is the best sales quarter for any consumer electronics vendor. In a usual year everyone shows at least some growth from Q3 to Q4

Fact. Symbian 3 was late by at least 6 months. (Theory - there was a huge pent up demand for a next generation Nokia phone)

Fact. Most of Sym 3 reviews were lookwarm, and the best they could say - this is the best Nokia phone ever (... but not up to Android and iPhone standards)
Nokia Sym 3 sales - are shipments to ditributors, not end user sales.

Theory:

Tomi's "absolute proof stuff" is BS. Q4 was a fluke and Nokia still lost a huge chunk of marketshare anyway. There was no turnaround and no easy way to save Nokia except something drastic like Elop did

[SoVatar]

@karlim, you have an interesting approach to hard facts. In scientific sense hard facts are measurable and verifiable, conclusions are better separated from hard facts.

I ran what I believe are hard facts from your post above:

1) Nokia sold 3 Mio less S1 / S60 phones in Q4 compared to Q3
2) Nokia said that N8 pre-orders were highest in Nokia's history

The rest from your post above I would not accept as hard facts without citing credible sources. Maybe you are an industry insider and know about the inner workings of revenue recognition within Nokia and the nature of contracts they have with their distributors. I don't have any such insights specific to Nokia as hard facts, however I would have opinions and assumptions.

I would take conclusions based on your hard facts 1-2 with a big grain of salt. Seems a little little, no?

Maybe you also want to go back and rephrase some of your statements as they just make no sense at all, i.e. "Nokia Sym 3 sales - are shipments to ditributors, not end user sales." I have no clue what you mean with that, are you saying no end-user ever paid for a Symbian 3 phone???

[karlim]

And, @Peter, before you start crucifying Jorma Ollila,remember that if not for him - there will be no Nokia as we know it. He was the CEO that made Nokia into mobile industry giant that it was until 2007.

As CEO of Nokia he made the amount of money that at his age he will never be able to spend. And even his family will be hard pressed to waste it. At this point in time, for a man like Jorma, his legacy is much more important then any amount of money anyone else can offer him. And successful Nokia is his main legacy.

So your and others like you pet theory that American short sellers or funds somehow got Jorma Ollila to appoint Elop to destroy Nokia to Microsoft benefit is ridiculous.

[Peter]

@karlim, do you know Enron ex-ceo Kenneth Lay and bank of america ex-ceo Ken Lewis ? they brought their company from under dog to world biggest ones for a couple of years in their sectors. then went to BK or almost BK. It would be same for Jorma Olilla.

Jorma Olilla betrayed the interest of nokia investors by firing previous management and brought in Elop to destroy nokia for the interest of US naked short sellers. It is written on the wall. who has eyes can see it.

Criminal decision is criminal decision, no matter how great he was once before.

Conclusion: Elop/Weber/Jorma have to be fired and sued in Finnish Court immediately.

[karlim]

@SoVatar

Sorry, I'm not ready to spend half or even full day backing up those "facts" I mentioned. I am somewhat industry insider - not really, but have been very closely following this industry for years, so I do not claim stuff as facts lightly. For those you dismissed:

Nokia N8 was at least twice as expensive as Sym 1 phones. I completely agreed with this statement, based on N8 official RRP/launch price in Q4 compared to prices of best selling older Nokia Symbian phones. For an easy comparison just check out the last Nokia earnings call - they officially name their best selling smartphones by model number - 5230 #1 still among them.

"There is at x-to at least 6 weeks lag period between what Nokia booked as sales and what end customers" - this is a standard industry practice. Every vendor - Samsung , HTC, Nokia, etc; are booking sales (and reporting them) to their direct customers - operators, retail chains and wholesalers, not what you and me buy at the shop. And there is several week lag while the devices are manufactured, delivered to shops and then bought by you and me. If you want look up WSJ and others stuff about 2 mil Galaxy Tabs sold in Q4 2010 and difference between sell-in and sell-out numbers early this year. Or just compare Gartner smartphone sales numbers to other analyst houses this Q. And we do not even start talking about device returns and other stuff. So yes - almost all Nokia reported sales in Q4 were to distributors. Some of those shipped N8s were bought by end users n Q4, some were not, and were lying in the warehouses and shops in 2011.

"Q4 Christmas Holiday quarter is the best sales quarter for any consumer electronics vendor" - again - it is a common industry knowledge - all you have to do is to pick a random major CE vendor and look at their Q3 and Q4 numbers in any year when there was no cataclysmic events like 2008 financial crisis

"Symbian 3 was late by at least 6 months" - on this one, just look up Symbian roadmaps from 2009 and listen to Nokia earnings conference calls for Q1/Q2 2010

Re: reviews. Just look up engadget gizmodo register pocketlint cnet and other N8 reviews

I'll agree that part of my and Victors and Barons claims can be considered theories. But I see no problem with that in this comment thread, when arguing that what Tomi claims to be an "absolute proof" of Nokia/Symbian resurgence is anything but any kind of proof. Or have you seen Tomi providing many source to back up his claims?

[karlim]

@Peter

Nice one, Peter.

Now you are comparing Nokia - a genuine tech giant, innovator who ascended to industry leadership on truly innovative products and ruled the industry for a decade, until they became too fat/complacent/lazy to respond to changing market/industry trends in a timely way, to a scam like Enron...

And cry for justice on every Tomi's anti-Elop rant, not even caring or trying to argue with anyone who shows how stupid this is.

Like in this particular thread, where I called you out 2 or 3 times already - to talk about how wrong Tomi's Q4 Symbian resurgence theory is, and how the arguments provided by Victor and Baron show that Nokia/Symbian house of cards was falling apart already in Q4 2010, well before Elop could do any damage.

No, instead discussing things relevant to this post, you keep harping on irrelevant (to this post) Meego stuff, and now, even more funny, turning to Enron and some BoA stuff..