Paging Truth Police: No! Windows Phone and Nokia Lumia are NOT outselling iPhone in China. Utter BS story spread by Microsoft propaganda machine

I mentioned this story in the blog story yesterday with the update about the smartphone bloodbath. But as the story is spreading very widely, I need to make the point explicitly.

Microsoft COO of Greater China, Michel van der Bel has been quoted very widely claiming that Windows Phone smartphones, especially the Nokia 800c are outselling the iPhone in China. This is utterly untrue. This is totally baseless. It is a palefaced lie. It is bullshit. Paging Truth Police. What is truth about Windows Phone in China, and why is Microsoft (and Nokia) spreading this kind of misinformation?

TOTALLY UNTRUE STORY - STOP SPREADING THE LIES - CORRECT YOUR STORIES, REPUTABLE JOURNALISTS !!

Lets go through the facts. First - NONE, and I mean NONE of any reported stories by independent sources suggest any kind of massive surge of Windows Phone sales in China. None whatsoever. Please check and do Google search where you ignore stories referencing Mr van der Bel. Look at stories before 14 May, 2012, and look for any reported independent news (ignoring Nokia or Microsoft claims). If there was a rush to buy Nokia Lumia 800c or the two other Windows Phone handsets sold in China, there would be huge stories of sales rampages in retail shops from Shanghai and Beijing to Chongqing to Urumqi. Try to find one. The only sales rampages that were in China, were with iPhone 4S launch, not Lumia 800c.

Secondly, if this was happening, it would be the biggest smartphone success ever seen in any market and it would be reported everywhere. I do mean anywhere. Apple just sold 19% of the Chinese market smartphones in Q1 according to Canalys. Remember the sales hysteria of the iPhone launch in the USA in 2007? They didn't achieve 19% in two months of US smartphone sales. They did not achieve 19% of USA smartphone sales - in two years! And it was the best smartphone launch in history supported by the biggest tech hysteria ever seen, and driven by Steve Jobs and his electrifying presense. If Windows Phone is now outselling iPhone in China - and did this in 2 months - it would be the biggest bestselling smartphone launch in history. It would be on nightly news on all Chinese TV channels - with Steve Ballmer and Stephen Elop prancing on stage all over China regularly. Remember the iPhone hysteria back in 2007? Where is the Chinese version of David Letterman and Jon Stewart and Conan O'Brian and Saturday Night Live doing big Lumia stories now? If that was the hysteria and hype of the biggest smartphone success ever seen, it would be regularly reported as astonishing China stories also in Western media, on CNBC and Bloomberg and CNN and BBC - and all the big analyst houses would be screaming about it in the press. Did you see any stories of a Windows Phone hysteria happening in China prior to May 14? Any? Even one? Even one story before this astonishing news? Did you see any stories of customers camping outside stores to get one? (Did you see any stories of the success, other than Microsoft's moutpiece Mr Bel and some rather tame Nokia PR statements?). I went through more than 500 separate news stories on Google News before 14 May using the filter of "Windows Phone" and "China" and foundnot one - not one - not one - not even one - reporting any kind of even the slightest sales rush or success of Windows Phone or Nokia Lumia in any - any - ANY - Chinese city or market or region or press or store. Not one.

Thirdly, Apple is having a huge time in China. If Microsoft's Mr Bel wanted to pick a story that was at least 'plausible' then take Motorola or HTC, former Chinese smartphone players who recently have seen falling market share. That story would be believable. But not Apple, not iPhone, not in China! Did you not just see Apple report its Q1 results (calendar quarter, ie January-March quarter) where Apple said its strong growth was driven by its China sales? Apple is growing in China, not shrinking. And note, that giant growth in China was done without the iPhone 4S selling for the full quarter! Now, Q2 (April-June) is the first full quarter the Chinese get of the iPhone 4S - it will likely be even better now!

Fourtly, all evidence by independent reporting is to the contrary - Canalys has reported in May that current China market share of Apple iPhone is 19% in smartphones, Samsung is at 22% and Nokia has fallen to third place. Even if all Nokia smartphone sales were Lumia 800c models - it would not be more than the iPhone. 

Fifthly, part 5-A: the Lumia 800c, which is supposedly the engine of this growth in China, is not sold by China Mobile the carrier who has 72% of the Chinese market! And part 5-B: The Lumia 800c is also not sold by China Unicom the second biggest Chinese carrier who has 22% of the market. Yes. Evidence Part 5-C: The Nokia Lumia 800c is only sold by the tiny China Telecom, the smallest of the three Chinese carriers who has 6% of the Chinese market. And this should now have somehow exceeded all iPhone sales in China? Dream on Chester! 

Sixthly, Samsung is China's bestselling smartphone. You might be forgiven for thinking, that because Samsung offers Windows Phone smartphones, it therefore must contribute to the Chinese Windows Phone surge. Sounds reasonable. Except Samsung sees global rejection of Windows Phone, does not even offer the Windows Phone versions of Samsung smartphones currently in Europe nor.. in China.

Seventhly, HTC is the other big Windows Phone maker apart from Nokia? They do offer one Windows Phone based smartphone in China, the HTC Triumph (ie Titan). But HTC expressly are seeing a decline in their market share in China right now, this Spring. (If you remember Dell also selling Windows Phone smartphones - yeah, they quit selling Windows based smartphones, as has LG, as has Sony, as has Motorola, the Windows Phone alliance is dying).

Eightly, Windows Phone does not have any meaningful portfolio of apps in the Chinese language (there are a few) whereas Symbian, Android and iPhone have tons. Note, for most Chinese consumers, a Western app with say maps to US highways or cities, is utterly pointless for China. Twitter isn't used in China, and so forth. You need Chinese apps. 'windows Phone did not exist as an OS platfrom in China this March. What apps exist in Chinese are few and far inbetween. Most of those are hasty auto-generated translated versions of Western apps, of little use in China. Why would you use for example Ebay in China when there are massive Chinese eCommerce and auction sites.

Ninthtly, Microsoft is a weak brand in China, for example the Xbox 360 one of Microsoft's best brands, is illegal in China. The Windows Phone brand was not even in existence in China before April. Windows Mobile was a total flop in China when attempted. But Symbian had over 80% market share of smartphones in China as recently as 2010, with Nokia having nearly 78% of the smartphone market according to Canalys.

Tenthly, Nokia? So Mr Bel claims the Nokia Lumia 800c is powering the China surge (on a carrier who has 6% of the mobile subscriber market, remember China Telecom is a fixed line operator, most of their subscribers are fixed landline telephone users). What of China Mobile who has 72% of the market? Nokia introduced the 801T for China Mobile (running - yes - Symbian). These are roughly in the same price range and for consumers have a similar number (801 vs 800) but the 801 is 'one better' and runs on the network that is far bigger.. I wonder which sells more. I mean,China Mobile is.. ELEVEN times bigger than China Telecom! And on Symbian there are tens of thousands of apps that are in Chinese, and have carrier-billing. This against a couple of hundred Windows Phone Chinese language apps, most which are very poorly ported weak versions (remember, even Rovio refused to bother to make a Windows Phone version of Angry Birds, because the installed base is too tiny, and only agreed to make an Angry Birds version after Microsoft dumped tons of cash into Rovio to pay for the version).

Eleventhly, there is actual independent reporting on whether Lumia is selling hotly in China. Finland's commercial TV broadcaster MTV3 reports explicitly on Chinese sales of Lumia as being 'tame' (in Finnish: 'Laimeasti' is translated by Google Translate as 'tamely'). They contrast the Lumia launch with that of the iPhone 4S which caused stampedes at Apple stores so severe that some stores had to be closed. MTV3 point out that there is nothing similar at big Beijing handset stores for Nokia Lumia.

Twelfthly this is standard Nokia and Microsoft marketing spin, any normal person would call lies and deception. When asked by MTV3, Nokia Communications Director Anna Shipley says "I can tell you that we are very satisfied with the feedback of both consumers and the carriers" but she refuses to release any numbers. (translation is mine, from MTV3 explicit quotation of Anna Shipley's response). Note how similar that was to how Nokia marketing spin doctors were reporting from Germany and the UK when Lumia originally launched - then months later, Elop was accusing resale channel of not selling Lumia properly. This is exactly the same marketing spin that for example Nokia China spokesperson Wang Jingqiu said last month that supposedly "sales had been brisk in all sales channels." This is exactly the same 'satisfactory' sales and 'brisk sales' that we heard Nokia talking about from Lumia launches for example in the UK - but later Nokia CEO Stephen Elop would actually criticize the UK sales channel for bad performance. The spin doctors again. We see it from the UK to the USA, from Germany to China. Always the same pattern, the promises of great sales before any numbers come out, then after the fact, come the news that the carriers actually are rejecting Lumia sales - store sales staff rejecting Lumia sales (as Nokia CEO Stephen Elop admitted to Nokia shareholders when asked about retail sales reluctance) and of the global sales reluctance by carriers to sell any Windows Phone handsets, due to Microsoft having bought Skype (another fact, Elop admitted to the Nokia shareholders this month).

Thirteenthly - The evidence of users is nowhere of any surge in China. Why is Statcounter (which measures behavior, so this would be installed base, actual users of Lumia and Windows Phone users, not shipments from the vendors to the retail channel, possibly sitting in warehouses not being sold). Statcounter finds 0.4% of smartphone use in China from all Windows Phone currently. That is yes, less than one percent. Nothing. Zero. Nada. While Symbian generates.. 17% (yes only 42x bigger). And iPhone 15% (only 37x bigger than all Windows Phone). By what metric is Windows Phone outselling iPhone? Perhaps Microsoft uses imaginary numbers to report on its performance. Hello?

Fourteenthly - the measured stats for total Nokia sales are well below Apple sales. I showed Canalys stats in the above. Now lets return to MTV3 and its story. MTV3 reports that Nokia current market share in China is under 15% - again, even if all Nokia sales were only Lumia smarthphones - and they are not, as there is lots of Symbian and MeeGo based N9 sales also in China, but even if all of Nokia currently was just the Lumia 800c, it would be nowhere near the 19% that Apple iPhone is selling in China right now.

Fifteenthly - the evidence from Chinese retail stores reporting top-selling smartphones in China show no evidence of any Nokia Lumia 800c or other Windows Phone success, among bestselling smartphones. While such online store evidence is not strong proof of success (such rankings can be manipulated by clever propaganda experts, like Microsoft and Nokia did for the Lumia 900 USA launch, as I explained yesterday), but the lack of evidence of strong online sales is strong proof there is no success.

Sixteenthly - The operating system environment is measured also not to allow such rapid change. Canalys reports Android has two thirds of the Chinese market! Add to that iOS at 19% and you've got 85% of the market right there. Then there are Symbians, MeeGos (N9 is a big Nokia seller in China), Blackberries, badas splitting that remaining 15% pie. Remember, Symbian was China's bestselling OS two years ago and has a large apps portfolio and Symbian based Nokia smartphones sell on all three operators. And somehow what remains of this 15% slice should help make Windows Phone, coming from zero percent literally zero, nothing in Q1, to over 19% now in Q2. Not happening. Not on this planet. Not in this universe.

Seventeenthly - The usage stats from one of China's most used mobile services, Sina Weibo (China's version of Twitter, as Twitter is not allowed in China) has 300 million users, the majority of them access on mobile phones and as of May 16, they had 115 million smartphone users, as reported by ZD Net Asia. Biggest user numbers? iPhone and Android. Also Symbian scored well. How did Windows Phone user base do now, on China's most popular microblogging service? Together with all users on Blackberries and Android Tablets, all Windows Phone combined with those two - scored under 1% of total users! I'd dare say Blackberry and Android Tablets have been in China far longer and have more of an 'installed base' of active users, so Windows Phone would be luckly to have a third, maybe as little as one tenth of one percent of Chinese users. Again. I ask you, where is the evidence of ANY success of Windows Phone in China?

Eighteenthly - The Chinese Windows Phone based experts know there is no such surge. The actual reporting from China, by experts friendly to Windows Phone, are saying the opposite. Check out chassit, at WPSauce, a Windows Phone friendly site from someone living in Beijing and using a Windows Phone handset. chassit reports:

 

"Now how many Windows Phone 7 OEMs are actually selling their products in China now? The answer is TWO: Nokia and HTC. How many devices are they offering? THREE: Lumia 800, Lumia 710, HTC Titan (rebranded as Triumph). How many Chinese carriers have they been working closely with in that time frame? ONE: China Telecom, the smallest of China’s three carriers. Now with the above facts, anybody still want to believe 7 million Windows Phone 7 devices have somehow been sold in 2 months, in China alone? That’s pretty crazy." 

 

He is a Windows Phone fan, he lives in China, he uses Windows Phone and he reports in Chinese smartphone matters and he concludes his blog article: "Here in the circle we all love Windows Phone 7. But fanboyism and unrealistically wishful thinking are not something we should dwell in."

TIME TO CORRECT THE STORY

I urge all journalists and bloggers and experts to call bullshit on this bogus story by Mr van der Bel of Microsoft. Please call him out on it. Please do your own independent research on the story, see what other analysts say, what actual China experts say, what the analyst houses say, and what measured behavior of China consumers reveals. There was no huge surge in Chinese smartphone buyers rushing madly to buy Windows Phone and Lumia 800c smartphones. The stores were not stampeded. There was no sales surge. Please correct your stories, if you are honest, if you want to be credible news sources.

And feel free to quote this story and link to here. Thank you. Its time to call the Truth Police on Microsoft (and Nokia) for lies about the Chinese Windows Phone and Lumia sales. No, it is 100% certain, there was no world-record jump in smartphone sales suddenly in China. Remember, this is exactly the same marketing spin that Microsoft and Nokia did with the Lumia launch in Europe last November and in Asia in December and in the USA in February. How the sales were so far above expectations. Remember those utterly bogus claims by Nokia that in the UK consumers were tired of iPhones and shifting to Lumia instead. Typical marketing spin say the communication experts. Typical lies, say the normal people. Shame on you Microsoft for lying to the world about Windows Phone and Lumia. 

BTW if you want to know why this is happening, there is actually an orchestrated war on the truth (yes, a war against the truth) by Microsoft now also used by Nokia. There are court documents that explain what Microsoft is doing and we see the latest evidence from Nokia that CEO Stephen Elop, an ex Microsoft guy, has brought that hostile marketing war to Nokia as well. Read all about the playbook of how the Axis of Evil, Microsoft+Nokia wage now the War Against the Truth in my Postcards from the Digital Jamboree 

Comments

[Vito]

Tomi, I was once a Nokia application developer live in China, and there is none of my friend or family member using Windows phone. But most of them use Android phones or iPhone, which I am not interested in. I used to be a Nokia fan, but Nokia really dispointed me when he decided to hug the Window Phone and to be only an OEM.
I finally make up my mind to give up Nokia and now I am looking for the BB10 phone by RIM, because the performance, the security, and the diversity of the App Dev Environment(Native, Qt/QML, Html, Java) for the QNX system are great advantages compared with the Android, WP, even the iOS.
The market won't wait for RIM, just hope BB10 to come as ASAP!

[Kenny]

Tomi, the fact that Bada outsells WP by 2 to 1 is very telling of the consumer rejection of WP. Bada may be best described as a sunset OS. It has a small app store of a few thousand apps which can be considered useful and no Whatsapp, Skype or Foursquare which are considered essential nowadays. There is a lack of developer support and OS updates by Samsung are few and far between. Even worse its future is in doubt as Samsung is reportedly going to drop Bada in favour of Tizen.

Given the setbacks how did Bada outsell WP? The answer is that when compare OS to OS, Bada easily vanquishes WP7.5. Bada is like a lightweight copy of Android with multiple homescreens, widgets, themes, lots of customization options and none of the restrictions of WP7.5 like no bluetooth file transfer, tied to Zune and no USB mode. Consumers know which is a better OS.

Lumia can only be sold with deep discounts and expensive freebies. In U.K. Lumia is being sold with a free expensive Nokia Purity headphone to push sales. WP isn't going to save Nokia, no way.

[So Vatar]

For what it's worth: I looked up Stat Counter's stats for Mobile OS in China:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-CN-monthly-201201-201205

Nice graph, and I took out the OS share numbers for iOS and WP

First number iOS, second number WP:
1/2012: 12.6%, 0.19%
2/2012: 12.8%, 0.22%
3/2012: 15.8%, 0.29%
4/2012: 16.7%, 0.30%
5/2012: 15.8%, 0.38%

These numbers, if correct, are indicative of installed base.
I can see a couple of interesting things:

1) WP share is a rounding error compared to iOS share.
2) There is no spike in WP's numbers that would indicate a huge sales success in April or May.
3) iOS grew from Jan to May 3.2 percentage points, WP 0.19 percentage points.

But of course Microsoft can also see it that way:

4) iOS grew from Jan to May by 25%, while WP's growth was a staggering 100%!!!
5) While iOS lost share from April to May ( - 5%), WP grew more than 26%!!!

See what I can do with numbers! 4) and 5) show clearly that WP outperforms iOS in terms of percentage growth! (If we just forget for a moment that WP's installed base was irrelevant in January and stays irrelevant in May.)

What else to add? Ah ja, Android came in with a share of 38.6% in May. This is pretty much 100 times bigger than WP.

Nuff said. WP is and stays a fail, even in China.

[Kenny]

Here's confirmation that Lumia phones cannot be upgraded to Apollo (WP8)
http://www.cnet.com.au/would-you-buy-a-phone-if-you-couldnt-update-it-339338353.htm

It's going to be pretty rough for Nokia in Q3 and Q4 when sales taper off.

[jedi]

wow..a lot of people cant sleep over the succes of WP..lol..grow up people.

[Juri]

I think Tomi just appears to fight WP BS you can find in media.

@CN "WP is having momentum", could you please clarify where except Finland WP is having momentum?

[xizzhu]

Well, as a Chinese living in Finland, all I can tell is, I have several relatives / friends (in China) using iPhone, but none using WP7 phones nor WM6 phones.

[JD!]

Why I see WP as burning platform instead of Symbian?

*sigh* the whole company burned!

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Vito, Kenny, So, jedi, Juri, xizzhu and JD

Vito - I hear you and I am now in a similar place. Ever since my first mobile phone in 1995, every single day since, there has been a Nokia branded phone in at least one of my pockets (while having many other brands, Ericsson, Motorola, Siemens, RIM, Samsung, etc as my second phone over the years). Note, this was from before I was headhunted by Nokia to join them in Finland, so I have been a Nokia loyal user for years before becoming a Nokia employee even. And now in 2012 that will end, I will end my association with Nokia because I won't take those rubbish Windows Phone handsets and Nokia doesn't offer me good devices (to buy) on MeeGo or Symbian. I would have wanted the N950 but they won't even sell it (currently my last Nokia phone is the E7, because of its great QWERTY keyboard. My other phone - my favorite in fact - is the Samsung Galaxy Beam, the one with the pico projector).

Kenny - thanks, and very good points. Also today comes news from the USA, that Lumia 900 has seen its SECOND set of price cuts. Two price cuts in two months? The Lumia 900 is not setting the USA market on fire, if they have to cut prices twice in two months haha..

So - thank you so much for posting the numbers. And yes, obviously, great points and we totally agree.. :-)

Kenny (second) - on the confirmation by CNet - I did see the story, but it is still their understanding, it has not been officially said by Nokia nor Microsoft. I think its highly likely that CNet is correct, but this is one area we don't have certainty yet.

jedi - welcome Microsoft Troll.. I'll leave your comment, I sleep just fine thanks. Why don't you come back, say six months or a year from now and lets talk about your 'success' of Windows Phone haha..

Juri - yep. I take the stats part of this industry as my personal responsibility. Its not just Microsoft, any time we have blatantly wrong stats reported in the industry, I put on my cape and rush in, as the Stats Police (note it is one content category on this blog). I am seen by many statisticians and forecasters as the grand old man of mobile industry forecasting haha, having been both the most accurate forecaster, and having built several of the most important forecasting models for our industry.. So I'd do this for any company, with such blatant obvious lies reported as truth.

xizzhu - thanks! I appreciate the input and so do our readers.

JD - Yes, me too. He traded two strong unburning platforms (Symbian and MeeGo) for the one most badly on fire (Windows Phone) which only caught even more on fire since Nokia selected it

Thank you all, please keep the comments coming

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[AI]

How's Gartner's prediction of Windows Phone 7 overtaking iOS by 2015? Is it still on schedule? ;-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

ROTFL !!!

Hi Al, that is hilarious. Yes. Gartner's silly projection yes, looking all the more foolish as the days and weeks go by. No. Windows Phone had some very misguided forecasts made last year by some reputable analyst houses, suggesting even over 20% market shares - I think the biggest I saw was 28% market share. Since then, Microsoft's Windows Phone market share fell from 2% to 1%. Then Nokia came in, today Microsoft Windows Phone is massively up to.. 1.6% market share. Nokia will see its smartphone market share down to 3% by year-end, that includes Windows Phone and Symbian and MeeGo, combined. The other Windows Phone partners are either totally bailing out of WP - like Sony, LG and Dell so far - or are shifting their business away from WP - like Samsung and HTC. The non-Nokia makers in Q1 only accounted for 10% of total Windows Phone sales, so its pretty meaningless already now, and for example Samsung doesn't bother to sell Windows Phone in Europe at all - a market where Samsung is both the biggest phone maker and smartphone maker. So if Windows Phone partners push Windows Phone to 4% by year-end, that would be nearly a miracle haha..

So yeah, Gartner's projection is looking supremely silly by now, Apple's iPhone had 24% now in Q1. Apple is exactly 15 times bigger in sales today than total Windows Phone sales by all of their partners combined. One confirmed sales boycott targeting Nokia brand sales, dumbphones and smartphones - globally (reported in multiple press stories, confirmed by Nokia CEO to shareholders). A second sales boycott targeting all Microsoft Windows based smartphones (reported in multiple press stories, confirmed separately by Nokia CEO to shareholders). The intersection point of those two global sales boycotts is.. Nokia Lumia series on Windows Phone. It is selling so badly, we just heard today that Nokia's 'flagship' Lumia 900 on that AT&T network where they have been promising 'above expectation' sales - have now issued today a second price cut in only two months! That is a sign of a very poorly selling handset, to need two price cuts in two months from launch. No. This will never catch the iPhone.

Thanks for a great laugh, Al

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[RobDK]

Hi Tomi

Good article!

What is your knowledge of Nokias pension fund? There have been a couple of unsubstantiated stories regarding the fact that it is underfunded in relation to known commitments, and that this large liability means that Nokia is more or less bankrupt NOW.

[AsianInvestor]

Example of media BS:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/cell-phones/consumer-reports-recommends-nokia-lumia-900-for-dads-and-grads/7646

"We saw last week that Windows Phone is outselling the Apple iPhone in China, but much of that is due to a specific wireless system used by China Mobile (largest mobile phone company in the world by customer base) that Apple doesn’t support."

So much BS in just one sentence. How much M$ pays those folks?!

"Windows Phone has shown slow, but steady growth since it launched in 2010 and is doing quite well in countries such as Germany and Norway."

Oh please!!! Here's indication of sales in Norway:
http://gs.statcounter.com/?chart_type=line&statType_hidden=mobile_os&region=Europe&region_hidden=#mobile_os-NO-monthly-201104-201204

BS like this is reason we need guys like Tomi.

[Kenny]

Tomi, on Lumia's upgradability to WP8, neither Microsoft or Nokia are going to confirm anything if it is indeed true that there is no upgrade path but we can draw a negative inference from their silence.

Nokia is going to be hit hard...very hard in Q3 and Q4 when the truth cannot be hidden anymore and consumers hold off purchase of WP7.5 phones.

If Q1 is bad for Nokia, Q2 will be worse and Q3 will be savage as sales of Lumia dries up with Symbian crashing to baseline and MeeGo artificially throttled. As for Q4, Nokia's survival will be on the line.

Well, Elop, you reap what you sow.

[Luca]

Where are the PR guys now? I hope to see one, some nice word fight would be going on... I hope your work will help nokia correct the path it is walking onto. By the way i would be interested in knowing more about who actually controls the,company and how the mismanagement of the company is percieved in finland. How are the finnish reacting towards the guys who are leading the company towards "certain death"?
Thank to all who help better understing.
Bye
Luca

[Christian Cawley]

While I am a fan and user of WP7, I appreciate the clarity of this article. However Tomi you seem so keen on "calling out" the M$ machine that you've overlooked an error of your own:

"Microsoft's Windows Phone market share fell from 2% to 1%"

No it didn't. Their mobile platform share fell. And they have/had two platforms, so any shrinkage is largely due to the discarding of Windows Mobile. Windows Phone started with nothing and has continued to grow thanks to the proliferation of handsets. Yes, it's small growth and I'm not contesting any of your other very valid points, but please if you're going to evangelize honesty and accuracy from M$/Nokia then you need to be accurate too :)

[Juri]

@ Luca

Nokia's top 10 shareholders include Finland's 5 pension funds, so quite a few people in Finland must be also wondering about this "mismanagement" aka Elop effect, because they are losing billions due to crashing stock price.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Rob, Asian, Kenny, Luca, Christian and Juri

Rob - sorry, I don't really know about that. This site is not a Nokia site haha, even though recently there have been several articles about the company. This is not even a site about handset makers or even a mobile only site. I deal with all matters in the digital space, with a focus area on mobile. But I have specifically decided to exclude any corporate financial analysis, as I don't want the Wall Street trolls to come here to argue pointless daily valuations of stock prices. So, sorry, Rob, I honestly don't know and haven't taken any trouble to try to find out. It would be of interest to potential buyers of Nokia - again a topic not central to my readers who are more interested in which platforms to develop digital services to, and thus they are interested will Nokia survive and on what platforms haha..

Asian - thank you for the kind words and yes, I saw that quote and thought exactly the same. Also thanks for the link!

Kenny - very true and honestly, if I was Nokia (or Microsoft) communication director, I'd do the same on that point. Rather not say, and keep them guessing, than admit that this is yet another problem. But, in the environment where Nokia is seen as no longer trustworthy and very suspect of lies and deception - this is going to hurt them more when the truth comes out..

Luca - haha, thanks. I have been removing some trolls but yeah, I am not exactly looking forward to debates. I'd much rather Nokia come and own up to their error and apologise and we can move on with that silly fight haha. But you make a good point, no official Nokiadudes here attempting to stand by this silly lie.

Christian - good point, I totally understand what you say. Now, part of what you talk about is true, but inspite of that, so was my statement. So yes, Microsoft did the cowardly dead of ending the separation of Windows Mobile and Windows Phone performance. When did they do this, last year, when the Windows Phone sales didn't grow. When Windows Phone launched, Windows Mobile had 3% market share. That has declined to 0.3% today. Yes, there has been a decline, and yes, some of that decline transferred to Windows Phone sales. But I said Windows Phone market share declined from 2% in Q4 of 2010 to 1% in Q4 of 2011. That ALSO happened. Yes. Windows Phone started with a bang - mainly as Microsoft was flooding the world with freebie trial devices. They did hit 2% market share in Q4 of 2010. That then fell steadily all last year, even as there was a migration from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone. So inspite of your point - which is correct - so was my statistic that I quoted. Yes, Windows Phone still today, has not managed to climb back to the level Microsoft had 18 months ago when Windows Phone was introduced. At that time, the combined Windows Phone and Windows Mobile market share was 4%.

So I understand what you say, and it is true, but my quoted statistic took that point into consideration, and the problem is truly this bad - inspite of that matter. No wonder Steve Ballmer himself said in September of 2011 that Windows Phone sales were "below expectation" (and he replaced his head of Windows Phone unit).

Juri - thanks, yes. And strangely inspite of that, they don't act. Bizarre.

Thank you all for the comments, keep the discussion going

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[vladkr]

The old "we're number one trick"...

they did it already few weeks ago claiming Windows Phone outsells iOS in Russia (read in MTS stores in fact, not in actual Russia), forgetting to mention that iPhone 4s is at least 50% more expensive than a Lumia 800 and 2.5x more expensive than a Lumia 710.

Anyway, Nokia is starving right now, so like a junky, they will do anything they can, moral or not, to get a little money to pay their piece of bread/their shoot.

I wouldn't be surprised if soon they'll claim that Windows Phone is the mobile OS #1 in the world (read of OSes which names start with "W"... Woohoo! they passed Windows Mobile!)

It's just like North Korean news that claimed North Korea won world Soccer championship, showing the only goal against Brazil.

It's sad because it's pathetic... they'll end up dying of starvation, or stupidity overdose.

[vladkr]

If you have a N9, you can collaborate to a project aiming to locate N9s in the world:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=200575306309039860448.0004c061f019b930e8621

Maybe it's not precise yet, but still interesting