Preliminary Projection for Full Year 2011 Smartphone Market Shares, and Q3 and Q4 performance

Ah, back from summer vacation and fresh to dig in. Lets start with this incredibly volatile year of the Smartphone Bloodbath, as I called it Year 2: Electric Boogaloo. Since we now have the full data on Q1 and Q2 performance, and we have plenty of signs into Q3 and some into the full year, we can do a preliminary projection for full year 2011 sales by each major brand, and the operating systems.

SMARTPHONE BRAND PROJECTION

The big assumptions I used were as follows. In general, the trajectory of each brand follows the recent past strongly weighted on the sales change from Q1 to Q2, as this period is the first full quarter of the 'Nokia customer give-away' due to the Elop Effect. Then for several individual brands I made the following assumptions:

Apple to release the next edition of the iPhone (so-called iPhone 5) in the last days of September so a couple of millions new iPhone sales are added to Q3. Then they'll have of course a monster Christmas quarter. And I am assuming no Nano low-cost iPhone model sold globally this year. If the Nano iPhone appears in time for Q4 broad sales, Apple could be 10M more easily in Q4.

Nokia N9 MeeGo sales will be modest towards the end of the year because Nokia only releases it in countries like Kazakhstan and Switzerland and New Zealand haha..  I am projecting total of 1 million N9 and other Meego sales split 200,000 in Q3 and 800,000 in Q4.

I am assuming Nokia's Microsoft Windows Phone 7 based smartphone will be released by end of October and sold broadly, achieving 3 million sales by year-end.

For Motorola, I am assuming Google will want to de-emphasize market share gains (to placate Android partners) and focus on profitability, hence I see no meaningful Motorola growth.

For Samsung, I see an increased emphasis on bada.

With that, this is how I see the top 10 handset brands selling in 2011. Note I have ranked the brands by full year 2011 market shares.

Brand . . . . . . Q1 Units . . .  Q2 Units . . . Q3 Units . . . Q4 Units . . . 2011 Total . . . 2011 Market Share
Apple . . . . . . 18.7 M . . . . . 20.3 M . . . . 24.9 M . . . . . 36.4 M . . . . 100.3 M . . . . . 21%   (16%)
Samsung . . . 12.6 M . . . . . 17.8 M . . . . 24.9 M . . . . . 33.8 M . . . . .  89.1 M . . . . . 19%   ( 8%)
Nokia . . . . . . 24.2 M . . . . . 16.7 M . . . . 12.9 M . . . . .  9.5 M . . . . .  63.3 M . . . . . 13%   (34%)
HTC . . . . . . .   9.7 M . . . . . 12.2 M . . . . 14.2 M . . . .  18.2 M . . . . .  54.3 M . . . . . 11%   ( 8%)
RIM . . . . . . .  14.5 M . . . . . 13.3 M . . . . 12.2 M . . . .  11.1 M . . . . .  51.1 M . . . . . 11%   (16%)
LG . . . . . . . .   4.7 M . . . . . . 5.4 M . . . . . 6.7 M . . . .  10.6 M . . . . .  27.4 M . . . . . . 6%   ( 2%)
SonyEricsson . 4.9 M . . . . . . 5.3 M . . . . . 5.6 M . . . . .  5.9 M . . . . .  21.7 M . . . . . . 5%   ( 3%)
Huawei . . . . .   3.0 M . . . . . . 4.0 M . . . . . 5.0 M . . . . .  5.8 M . . . . .  17.8 M . . . . . . 4%   ( 2%)
Motorola . . . .   4.1 M . . . . . . 4.4 M . . . . . 4.5 M . . . . .  4.2 M . . . . .  17.2 M . . . . . . 4%   ( 5%)
ZTE . . . . . . . .  2.2 M . . . . . . 2.8 M . . . . . 3.5 M . . . . .  4.1 M . . . . .  12.6 M . . . . . . 3%   ( 1%)
Others . . . . . .  2.6 M . . . . . . 5.8 M . . . . . 6.1 M . . . . .  5.7 M . . . . .  20.2 M . . . . . . 4%   ( 4%)

TOTAL . . . .  101.2 M . . . .  108.0 M . . .  120.5 M . . .  145.3 M . . . .  475.0 M

Projection Source: TomiAhonen Consulting 7 Sept 2011
This forecast may be freely quoted and distributed

As the year 2012 bloodbath will mostly reflect the state of the industry by Q4 of 2011, not Q1, I will post the Q4 projection separately here below, but lets first observe a few interesting developments to look for. Samsung will probably run Apple neck-to-neck for honors of who is biggest in Q3. If the iPhone 5 is delayed, Samsung should take it, but if the iPhone 5 launches last week of September, it should be tantalizingly close. Then in Q4, the global love-affair with the newest iPhone should give Q4 safely back to Apple even with strong Samsung growth as well.

Nokia contines its downfall. Nokia falls to fourth place by Q3 and down to 6th place by Q4. It was as big as numbers 2 and 3 combined as recently as half a year ago. Ouch!

Motorola continues its demise, dropping to 8th place by Q3 and 9th place by Q4.

RIM drops one more place to HTC, but then staves off LG's surge to hold onto the ranking of 5th biggest smartphone maker still by end of year in Q4. That will also be their full-year rank, as HTC takes fourth place. Nokia's third place on the full year is only due to the pre-Elop Effect Q1 results.

Huawei will chase SonyEricsson for seventh biggest title by Q4 and ZTE will chase Motorola for the 9th biggest title also in Q4. Will be very interesting in the Electric Boogaloo, and obviously any major changes like if Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is fired and the lunatic Microsoft strategy abandoned in favor of full-fledged MeeGo strategy, Nokia's market share would be markedly better than this dismal picture. Or of the iPhone 5 is delayed later into the year and doesn't get global launch in time for Christmas, Apple could do worse, but like I said, if the decide now to split the product range and give us a lower-cost Nano in addition to the iPhone 5, Apple could do far better..

Now lets look at the operating systems:

SMARTPHONE OS PROJECTION

So, what did I assume? Same recent trends with heavy emphasis on Q1 to Q2 trend. For a few brands, made some specific assumptions (see above for iOS ie Apple). For Samsung, I see a growing shift to bada, which will reduce somewhat the emphasis on Android.

For Nokia, I am assuming one Windows Phone 7 based Microsoft smartphone released by end of October, which needs to be a hit phone (no antennagate or N97 production etc problems). It will get the biggest promotion push Nokia has ever done, as Stephen Elop's career depends totally on the success of his Microsoft strategy, and expect Microsoft itself to put tons of marketing money on this launch too. I think even with a shortened quarter, it should do about 3 million sales. And then there is the MeeGo sales as per above. So these new OS based premium phones will eat into Nokia's Symbian sales, which will see an even bigger drop from Q3 to Q4, as there is the simultaneous shift from Symbian to the two others.

So we get these kinds of totals for the year 2011. Again I am ranking the OS platforms by their full year 2011 market shares:

OS . . . . . . Q1 Units . . .  Q2 Units . . . Q3 Units . . . Q4 Units . . . 2011 Total . . . 2011 Market Share
Android . . . 35.5 M . . . . 49.0 M . . . . . 59.3 M . . . .  75.9 M . . . . 218.7 M . . . . . 46%
iOS . . . . . . 18.7 M . . . . 20.3 M . . . . . 24.9 M . . . .  36.4 M . . . . 100.3 M . . . . . 21%
Symbian . .  25.5 M . . . . 17.7 M . . . . . 13.5 M . . . .   5.8 M . . . .   62.5 M . . . . . 13%
RIM . . . . . . 14.5 M . . . . 13.3 M . . . . . 12.2 M . . . . 11.1 M . . . .   51.1 M . . . . . 11%
bada . . . . .   3.5 M . . . .   5.4 M . . . . .   7.7 M . . . . 10.5 M . . . .   27.1 M . . . . .   6%
MS WP7 . . . 1.5 M . . . .   1.1 M . . . . .   1.8 M . . . .   5.1 M . . . .    9.5 M . . . . .   2%
MS WinMo .  1.7 M . . . .   0.5 M . . . . .   0.2 M . . . .   0.1 M . . . .    2.5 M . . . . .   1%
MeeGo . . . .  0.0 M . . . .   0.0 M . . . . .   0.2 M . . . .   0.8 M . . . .    1.0 M . . . . .   0%
Others . . . .  0.3 M . . . .   0.7 M . . . . . .  0.7 M . . . .   0.6 M . . . . .  2.3 M . . . . .   0%

TOTAL . . . 101.2 M . . . 108.0 M . . . . . 120.5 M . . . 145.0 M . . . . 475.0 M

Projection Source: TomiAhonen Consulting 7 Sept 2011
This forecast may be freely quoted and distributed

Again, some interesting developments. Symbian holds its third place in Q3 but then tumbles all the way to fifth place behind RIM and bada, barely ahead of Windows Phone 7 by Q4. Blackberry OS/RIM holds its third place but by end of year faces a surging bada. I don't foresee stong support by Microsoft partners to the Nokia shift, so I see the other Microsoft WP7 makers all riding the Android wave to the end of the year, partly because Microsoft's strong marketing push supporting Nokia.

Also note, the fantasy by Nokia CEO that Nokia could somehow sell 150 million more Symbian phones is completely wiped out by now. This FULL YEAR, there will be 62.5M Symbian phones sold, which includes Nokia's Symbian partners like Sharp, Fujitsu, Panasonic etc. After the Microsoft partnership was announced on Feb 11, Nokia will sell about 49 Million Symbian based smartphones in total in the year 2011. Then next year, 2012, Nokia will shift aggressively to Windows Phone 7, so at best - at best - Nokia could add 25 Million more Symbian sales in 2012. Thats yes, folks, 74 Million - only half what Elop promised of those 150 Million more Symbian sales. And after that, it would be peanuts per year. If its true (and increasingly what Stephen Elop says has less and less of a correlation with what normal people would equate with 'the truth') that Nokia continues to support Symbian till 2016 - Nokia would then need to do about 19 Million more Symbian smartphone sales - each year - through 2014 to fulfill his 150 Million pledge. Ain't gonna happen. because those 19 Million would eat into the Microsoft Windows Phone sales. As long as Elop is in charge of Nokia, he will slavishly set the Microsoft interest ahead of Nokia's interest and thus he's not gonna let those Symbian sales cut into WP7 sales.

Thats how I see the year forming, based on the early data this year, and pending no other massive surprises of the style of Nokia abandoning Symbian, HP killing Palm/WebOS or Google buying Motorola haha, but if that was the first half of the year in the Bloodbath Year 2, then we can expect similar surprises in the second half as well.

Also remember, the handset business is a hits business (remember the Razr) and one hit phone can totally make (or break) a company (remembering the fall of Motorola after the Razr). The hottest phone or line of phones now is the latest Galaxy series from Samsung. That could have been Nokia's N9 and N950 and others on MeeGo if Nokia bothered to give MeeGo half a chance. And who knows, if suddenly LG or SonyEricsson or Huawei release a hit phone, that could greatly tumble the end-of-year situation.

THE PROJECTIION FOR Q4 IS INDICATOR FOR 2012

But with the best info we have now, if Stephen Elop continues in charge of Nokia, if Apple gives us no Nano iPhone, etc, and we get this Q4 picture, this will also be a strong pre-cursor of the world into 2012. Who are the big players next year are far more based on this Q4 picture than the full-year 2011 picture in they above. So lets do the market shares only based on Q4 numbers as per the above early projection. It is interesting..

Brand . . . . . . Q4 Units . . . Q4 2011 Market Share (vs Q4 2010 market share)
Apple . . . . . . 36.4 M . . . . 25%   (16%)
Samsung . . .  33.8 M . . . . 23%   (11%)
HTC . . . . . . . 18.2 M . . . . 13%   (  9%)
RIM . . . . . . .  11.1 M . . . .  8%   (14%)
LG . . . . . . . . 10.6 M . . . . . 7%   (  5%)
Nokia . . . . . .   9.5 M . . . . . 7%   (29%)
SonyEricsson . 5.9 M . . . . . 4%   (  4%)
Huawei . . . . .   5.8 M . . . . . 4%   (  2%)
Motorola . . . .   4.2 M . . . . . 3%   (  5%)
ZTE . . . . . . . .  4.1 M . . . . . 3%   (  1%)
Others . . . . . .  5.7 M . . . . . 4%   (  3%)

TOTAL . . . .  145.3 M

Projection Source: TomiAhonen Consulting 7 Sept 2011
This forecast may be freely quoted and distributed

This is fascinating.. So going into 2012, the world will see a royal clash of two giants, Apple vs Samsung for smartphone handset brand hegemony, roughly counting for half of all smartphones sold and running very tightly for the world championship.

Then we see HTC all by itself in third place, the contender, growing and putting distance to the pretenders.

In the pretender category we see struggling RIM, the badly wounded Nokia and surging LG. During 2012, Nokia would shift its Symbian (and MeeGo) smartphones to Windows Phone 7, so it being a transition year, expect few gains if any in the races, giving rivals plenty of chances to pass Nokia and consolidate their positions.

In the also-ran category or the very dark horses we see SonyEricsson, Huawei, ZTE and Motorola. Now lets look at Q4 from the OS point of view.

OS . . . . . . Q4 Units . . . Q4 2011 Market Share (vs Q4 2010 market share)
Android . . . 75.9 M . . . . 52%   (30%)
iOS . . . . . . 36.4 M . . . . 25%   (16%)
RIM . . . . . . 11.1 M . . . .   8%   (14%)
bada . . . . .  10.5 M . . . .   7%   (  3%)
Symbian . .     5.8 M . . . .  4%   (32%)
MS WP7 . . .   5.1 M . . . .  4%  (  2%)
MS WinMo .    0.1 M . . . .  0%  (  2%)
MeeGo . . . .    0.8 M . . . .  1%  (   -  )
Others . . . .    0.6 M . . . . . 0%  (  1%)

TOTAL . . . 145.3 M 

Projection Source: TomiAhonen Consulting 7 Sept 2011
This forecast may be freely quoted and distributed

What utter total comprehensive collapse by Symbian. The world's bestselling smartphone OS utterly self-destructed and abandoned 7 out of every 8 customers it had (gifting these to its competitors). Even if you add all Symbian, and all Microsoft (both Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7) and all MeeGo phones together, Nokia+Microsoft had 36% before the alliance (Symbian+MeeGo+WinMo+WP7) and will find themselves with mere 9% at the end of this year. This is a literal case of where 1 + 1 is far less than 2. The alliance has obliterated 3/4 of all the customers they had separately, when now added together. In business alliances, this is one of the most damaging partnerships ever conceived.

Who gains the most? Android, iPhone and bada. RIM is mysteriously unable to capitalize on the Nokia collapse (or maybe it is, but Blackberry's decline would have been even worse without the Nokia give-away? who knows?)

And then that wives' tale of 'the third ecosystem' that the Microsoft-Nokia spin-machine is now weaving. No, it ain't. Not the third eco-system, not by any measure. Not now and not next year either. Nokia's Symbian was the 'first eco-system' and by far the biggest by almost every conceivable measure, or second biggest by the only other measures that mattered, until Elop killed Symbian. Going into 2012, the mess that is Nokia + Symbian + Meego + Qt + Ovi + Microsoft + Windows Mobile + Windows Phone 7 will be the FIFTH ecosystem, behind Android (half of the world), Apple iPhone/iOS (a quarter), and RIM and Samsung's bada. Fifth, not third. With at best something near 8% and declining, not 20%.

So there you have it. Note, this is preliminary but I do think that excepting for some truly dramatic news (most of all the firing of Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, but also if an iPhone Nano is released), we should see full-year 2011 marekt shares reasonably close to the ones I had in the top half of this projection. I will have more data points when we get Q3 results, and can then update especially this Q4 projection which is very preliminary. As all who understand forecasts know, the further we project into the future, the greater the errors in it. And yes, please remember, no forecast can be accurate, nobody has a crystal ball, so this is only a guess like any forecast. But I am known as the most accurate forecaster of the mobile industry, so where we all make errors, I believe this forecast will be closer to the truth (with less errors) than most, haha.. Forecasts like this are more useful in the trends they reveal than the absolute numbers they suggest. 

Feel free to spread the info and obviously, if anyone needs deeper info into the handset market, consider my 2010 TomiAhonen Phone Book with tons of stats in it, the ebook format statistical guide fits into your pocket onto your smartphone or Kindle or iPad and then you'll have all the major industry stats with you at all times. It only costs 9.99 Euros for immediate download. 

Comments

[Vikram]

"RIM is mysteriously unable to capitalize on the Nokia collapse..."

Actually this isn't mysterious at all. RIM, like Nokia, had a non-competitive OS as compared to iOS and Android. What is plaguing RIM is what hurt Nokia. RIM is benefiting from the enterprise mail hooks and BBM which is preventing it from utter collapse a la Nokia, otherwise it would have a sharper downfall much like Nokia. RIM's OS, like Symbian^3 and MeeGo, are not up to snuff when compared to to Android and iOS and customers know this and are voting with their wallets.

I do have to say though, that the Nokia MeeGo phone that they released is beautiful. Nokia is the only company that can make hardware like Apple in terms of quality and design aesthetic. It is too bad that they couldn't compete on software and had to go the MSFT route. I do expect that the upcoming Nokia/MSFT phones to be outstanding and better than Android and nearly on level with iOS assuming that MSFT can get the WP7 Mango version up to snuff in time this fall. Am looking forward to seeing it.

I don't blame Elop. If he had stuck with Symbianm or MeeGo, the nearly the exact same predicament would have befell Nokia. Nokia's software just isn't up to snuff post iPhone and neither is the software development ecosystem for third party developers as compared to the quality of tools and ease of development as compared to iOS and Android.

[Peter]

tomi, you underestimated Symbian Belle in Q4, underestimated Meego N9 in Q3/Q4, overestimate WP7.5.
My guess is
Meego N9 Q3 1M,Q4 3M
Symbian Anna Q3 5M
Symbian Belle Q4 5M
WP7.5 Q4 1M
Feature Phones Q3 10M, Q4 12 M
----------------------------------
Total Q3 16M, Q4 21M

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Vikram, LeeBase and Peter

Vikram - I hear you, but the 'mystery' part is, that Nokia's E-Series (all Symbian and all in utter collapse) was created by Nokia to be Nokia's clone of the Blackberry, from similar QWERTY-keypad Blackberry look-alike phones, to the business services with the E-Series unit. So when Nokia's E-Series collapses with Symbian, the likely replacement for someone addicted to messaging and demanding a full QWERTY phone is not an iPhone haha.. That is what I mean, for the E-Series the typical customer is exactly Blackberry, both enterprise users (Blackberry and E-Series had two thirds of the world's enterprise/corporate phone accounts, Blackberry owning most of North America and E-Series most of rest of world) and the youth heavily texting-crazy segments were the second target for E-Series exactly like it was for the Blackberry.

And if you say Blackberry is failing - it is only failing in the USA, it is GROWING sales in many European, Asian, Latin American and African markets. Just the latest survey by Kantar of UK consumers for example found Blackberry now ahead of the iPhone in that market. Similarly stats from this week by Gartner of Middle Eastern smartphone market have Blackberry at number 2 with Android at 3 and iPhone at 4. But Blackberry international sales are not growing fast enough to match the heavy declines in the USA. If what you wrote was true. Blackberry would be declining.

On Nokia software not 'up to snuff' sorry - evidence says contrary. Nokia Symbian S^3 since Q4 of last year was good enough. Not as good as iPhone but good enough. Windows was never as good as the Mac, but after Windows 3.0 became 'good enough', Windows flew past the Mac. Nokia had good enough software from Q4 of last year and the stats I have posted here on the Nokia Q4 numbers I crunched during my summer vacation prove it clearly.

And on the user-friendliness of the Nokia software, if you say was Symbian a pain to develop for, I totally agree yes. That is why Nokia bought Qt and adapted it to provide one simple set of easy-to-use tools that allow you to create apps for Symbian, MeeGo and S40 (and Android) - and users of Qt say it is BY FAR the fastest, easiest-to-use development environment. I am no longer a programmer haha (my last languages were Fortran, Cobol, C - not C+ haha, first edition C etc) and cannot comment from personal view, but that is what programmers familiar with Symbian, iOS, Android and Qt - say - Qt is by far the best. Sorry. Your point was once true, it is no longer true. Today an OS strategy and ecosystem strategy built on Symbian and MeeGo and Qt (and Ovi) would be the best, and the shift to Windows Phone is an utterly dumb move by Nokia that will kill Nokia before mass market WP7 phones reach the market. I expect Nokia to be sold before the year is done.

LeeBase - nothing changed. Apple delayed its iPhone 5 launch. I predicted very clearly last year for Q2, that the iPhone sales would benefit from iPhone 4 launch and then have a monster quarter for Q3. This year that is likely one quarter shifted back, so like I said, assuming the iPhone 5 launches last week of September, we'll see people standing in lines to buy it, and Apple's next quarter - this time Q4 not Q3 - will be the monster. The jump is the same level as I had last year and the year before. Nothing changed.

Don't you agree, Lee, that IF there was a parallel QWERTY iPhone 5, more expensive and yes, more thick - it would sell to many who refuse the pure touch type of phone? Maybe it would add 5% more sales or maybe 50% more sales, but there DEFINITELY are more people like me, who want the iPhone but who need the ability (or think they need the ability) to type texts blindly.. hence we need a real QWERTY. And as long as Apple refuses to serve that segment, they are abandoning sales. As this QWERTY keyboard version of the iPhone would add a modest cost component whose manufacturing costs would be of the order of 5 dollars or 10 dollars max, but would allow 50 dollar higher price, there is MASSIVE profit that Apple is now leaving for customers to eat. Don't you agree that SOME sales are not coming to Apple simply because there is no QWERTY version? And the intelligent company would take that profit too?

As to 600 dollar limit, I keep telling that I am amazed how Apple keeps pushing that envelope and all the data we had, including a recent Morgan Stanley survey of handset price pyramid - have been proven wrong by Apple. I salute Apple for that. I trust you are not arguing the poor African who earns a dollar a day and has a 25 dollar basic phone, will buy a 600 dollar phone in this decade? So if Apple stretches the market now, there is certainly an absolute limit where the iPhone cannot go? Or do you disagree?

Peter - THANKS ! That is EXACTLY what I always hope for when I post something with a scenario for the future, to hear someone else's view, in this case someone brave enough to post some numbers... Good thinking.

Now, where we disagree.. I see you think MeeGo N9 will sell far better than me. Did you remember that none of the big countries get the N9. When the N8 sold in all Nokia markets, it did about 3.5 to 4 million units according to some analyst who had dug into Nokia S^3 sales, I forget who it was. Total S^3 was 5M. So if the N8 can only do at best 4M then I think your estimate is way too optimistic with Elop in charge. Yes, if there was a sane CEO who blanketed the world with the N9 as long as its the hot Nokia phone (and especially - especially as Apple seems to be delaying the iPhone 5) - then yes, I agree, 4M total and 3M in Q4 would be very reasonable - we just heard today the pricing for SIM-free (unsubsidised) N9 pricing from Singapore - will be 799 Singapore Dollars ie about 469 Euros or what was it, 669 US dollars. Very competitive. If the N9 was released broadly, with those specs, it should do well - even more so, with the Symbian sales boycott, the N9 would feed a hungry Nokia client base..

But you suggest only 1M WP7 phones. It may be that haha, we won't know. It depends very much on the early reception of the phone, certainly the buzz on 'Sea Ray' (the 'leaked' prototype WP7 phone by Nokia) has not been anything as stong as for the N9. But remember, Nokia will oversaturate the world with the launch marketing for that phone, its Elop's baby, he needs it to be a hit. It may 'fizzle' in Q1 of next year, if there are problems, but the early sales should be huge, with a big Nokia and Microsoft marketing push. I am sure Elop has an internal target saying they have to ship more than 4M so he can say its better than the N8 and is the best launch of a new Nokia phone ever.. Whether they reach that, who knows but I am sure the WP7 phone will outsell the MeeGo phone, that is too easy for Nokia to 'arrange' (shipment problems with N9 etc)

But we'll see soon enough. Thanks Peter

Thank you all for the comments

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Joe]

Regarding RIM, what I am seeing here in Canada in a business context is that people are dropping their Blackberries like hot potatoes and switching to iPhones. These same people are also considering the Samsung Galaxy S2 but many have already bought an iPad or iPad2 and want to "stick with the same ecosystem", so they buy an iPhone in the end.

Personally, I continue to buy Nokia for their travel-friendly 5-band GSM capability that no other manufacturer seems to have but everywhere around me it is iPhone, iPhone, iPhone. There is still lots of growth left for Apple.

[virgil]

@Joe - everywhere around you it is "iPhone, iPhone, iPhone" so you conclude that there is still lots of growth left for Apple? I'm confused.....

[elmo]

Speaking about Nokia,

Tomi you miss to comment the IPR shift from Nokia to MOSAID.

I can understand the agreement between Nokia and MODAID ... what it is totally incomprehensible , it is why in the agreement for Nokia IPR, given as a "gift" to MOSAID, Microsoft is going to take 1/3 of the possible revenues that MOSAID can generate using the gifted IPR.

Why Microsoft should get money from Nokia IPR ????

Sound Elop forgot again that Ballmer is not anymore his boss.

Tchuss

e_lm_70

[peter]

@Tomi, my numbers are for those sold to consumers (directly and indirectly)
If it is talking about the units sold to carriers/retailers/distributors, Meego N9 could be much higher, 2M in Q3, 6M in Q4, and 2M for WP7.5.

Flying off the shelf for Meego N9 is a surely thing. Consumers/carriers/distributors/retailers are all loading up to pank the rude criminal Steven Elop and Chris Weber.

[Joe]

@virgil, I'm referring to purchasing plans, not what people already own.

[SteveWaugh]

@LeeBase I agree with @Baron95 - it's not that the QWERTY loving users are switching from touch-only to kbd-iphones, it's that you will split your total set of iPhones amongst QWERTY loving users and traditional touch fans. Still sell the same number of phones because you are demand constrained but sell them to different populations and hence shifting sales from one model to another.

In addition to @Baron95 concerns about the impacts of the additional SKU I think it will increase the inventory you have to keep and make it harder to predict supply chain based on actual preferences. Real impact is that it dilutes what the Apple engineering team can focus on.

[Earendli Star]

I agree with Peter on Symbian. I think that Belle might be capturing some extra market share, also considering the new (cheap!) phones coming out (600, 700, 701) and the appeal (free maps, last Symbian phones, etc.) they could have with Nokia users looking to update their phones (e.g. outdated 5800s, etc.).

Feel reassured, this latest move on Symbian is only to keep the ailing OS for a couple o months more, thus avoiding Nokia's total collapse and wider repercussions on the migration to WP.

Instead, I believe that the N9 will not sell that much, not because it is not worth it, but rather because it's being boycotted by TH Elop. Supply will be much lower than demand, although I believe many people from major countries -where N9 will not sell- will try to get it by buying it online, e.g. Germans from Switzerland. Summarising: its success or not will depend on supply, not demand.

Finally, regarding iPhone, its success over BB is that iPhone is now cool, much more than BB. So, unless BB is able to revert this trend and change this aura, iPhone success will continue increasing.

[Peter]

@Earendli Star , "Supply will be much lower than demand"
thats my main concerning too. The criminal-prone Elop can do anything to destroy nokia.

[funny t-shirts]

I heard a rumor that the iphone5 will have a shashaint relay system that interfaces directly to a raz a9 z9ff processor. That will be more common in touch screens in 2012 I think in the 200+ price points.

[Robo]

Hi Tomi, thanks for another interesting analysis. One thing I would like to add that we all might underestimate WP7. I also don't think it will have significant jump in market share next year, but in long run it might get comfortable 10% to 20%. If I may quote you: "users of Qt say it is BY FAR the fastest, easiest-to-use development environment" - totally agree with this statement, except when it comes to WP7. Some developers are literally shocked how fast is WP7 development. In our company we see 2 to 3 times increase of speed of development, comparing to Qt/QML. And we are very experienced Qt dev. house. Very interesting to see if it will help advancing WP7 market share.

[sve]

Great comments as usual. I believe WP may yet prevail against Android, the consequence of being made by a world-class OS software shop. Microsoft can go toe-to-toe with Apple on anything: cloud, programming tools, communications, applications, languages, etc. Google develops Android, but it is a web services / advertising shop at its core - not an OS/applications shop.

I also see parallels in the HP predicament to Nokia: a company that sells hardware and is dependent on another for its software loses profitability. It seems longterm survival means you have to control both the hardware and the software.

Apple certainly is supply constrained today and they will grow to a point. But there are limits to how far Apple will succeed in the smartphone market as their offerings begin to overserve what their customers really need. Good voice and internet with passable A/V/GPS is the basic need. Lower cost rivals will begin to meet this while Apple will continue pushing the high end like cloud services, home audio/video integration, etc.

[TechExp]

Steve jobs has already replied to the issue you talked, Tomi. This is what he said, "Its either my way, or the highway." Clearly Apple doesnt need to do anything silly, as its leading in most aspects of the mobile ecosystem.

I feel the 2012 will be a huge year for blackberry. It has started making smartphones with the QNX based OS, which we have seen in its tablets. This platform could just act as a saviour for RIM's declining sales in the U.S. Also Nokia will be back with the MS Win OS based phones. So the then leaders in smartphones, BB and Nokia have changed their platforms to compete with Apple and Android. They promise a lot. Can they deliver something extraordinary?

[SteveWaugh]

@LeeBase, you said:

"I just think that WERE Apple to add a keyboard model, there would be a net sales increase and not just a spreading out of sales over two different models.

That is -- assuming they could manufacture enough."

I don't disagree, but if Apple could manufacture enough in the first place, why not just manufacture touch-only phones ?

Until we have truly hit a point where Apple is no longer supply constrained I see no reason for them to add an additional SKU.

[sve]

The QWERTY keyboard comments indicate that there's an opportunity for someone to create an add-on plastic iphone skin with a keyboard built in to add that functionality.

[Eurofan]

@Peter: I also want to thank you for making ballsy predictions for Nokia Q4. Except I'm not sure Nokia can ramp up production of N9 too much given what I read everywhere that Nokia plans to make 100K N9s to start. If the N9 gets so hot that Swiss and Singapore people can buy one and sell it tomorrow on eBay for $300 mark-up that would be almost as cool as selling 2M, wouldn't it, and would certainly get some press attention. I too think WP phones will flop big time, there is just no demand for them and advertising can't do anything about that. Symbian looks great with Belle and that was always the issue, wasn't it, that the UX of Symbian needed to get up to date. So Symbian could do better than anyone expects since it tends to be attached to phones which work well as phones, which is a selling point. Peter, I like your bold predictions and will be watching the next four months with excitement.

[Peter]

@Baron95, bluetooth keypad is not new. nokia had this kind of staff long time ago.

[Bob,Boulder, Colorado]

Both Apple and Google are going to be very happy with the projections if they come true. But I suspect Google has more reasons to be happier than Apple.