Smartphone Market Shares Q2 Full Numbers - Samsung and Android solidifying their leads

Time to do Q2 total numbers update to the Smartphone Bloodbath Year 3: Digital Jamboree. How are the market shares. As always, I take the total quarter shipment/sales number of the four big analyst houses (Gartner, IDC, Strategy Analytics and Canalys) and use the average of their numbers, to get the total number for this quarter - which is 153.0 million units for Q2 (up 4% from Q1, meaning the industry is currently on track to sell 695 million smartphones this year, up 43% from last year). Here is the blog of Q1 numbers if you want to go back to see.

Then I take all official data as published by those smartphone makers who give out their numbers, and after that, I use other public sources, my internal data sources, and use various estimates and calculations to fit reported data and historical information, within the limits of the total market size, to calculate my estimate of the remaining data points. When later data is revealed, I am proven consistently to be very accurate by this method..

That gives us the official TomiAhonen Consulting market share calculation, which on this site, is as has always been, the most thorough and largest free source of smartphone market shares you can find anywhere (and we have no advertising, there is no registration for the blog, and I don't collect your visitor data etc, how weird is that?) This is all part of the service here at TomiAhonen Consulting. I also give a quarterly update for each major smartphone brand and platform, including 'school grades' on how they are doing in the Bloodbath battle. So lets get to the big numbers.

TEN BIGGEST SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS BY UNIT SALES IN Q2 2012

Rank . Maker . . . . . . Units . . . Market Share . . . . Was in Q1 of 2012
1 . . . . Samsung  . . . 50.4 M . . 32.9 % . . . . . . . . ( 30.6 %)
2 . . . . Apple . . . . . . 26.0 M . . 17.0 % . . . . . . . . ( 24.2 %)
3 . . . . Nokia . . . . . . 10.2 M . . . 6.7 % . . . . . . . . (   8.2 %)
4 . . . . HTC . . . . . . . . 8.8 M . . . 5.8 % . . . . . . . . (   5.4 %)
5 . . . . ZTE . . . . . . . . 8.0 M . . . 5.2 % . . . . . . . . (   3.4 %)
6 . . . . RIM . . . . . . . . 7.8 M . . . 5.1 % . . . . . . . . (   7.6 %)
7 . . . . Sony . . . . . . .  7.5 M . . . 4.9 % . . . . . . . . (  5.0 %)
8 . . . . Huawei  . . . . .  7.0 M . . . 4.6 % . . . . . . . . (  4.8 %)
9 . . . . LG . . . . . . . . . 6.5 M . . . 4.2 % . . . . . . . . (  3.8 %)
10 . . . Motorola . . . . . 6.0 M . . . 3.9 % . . . . . . . . (  3.5 %)
Others . . . . . . . . . . . 10.8 M . . . 7.3 % . . . . . . . . (  3.3 %)
TOTAL  . . . . . . . . . 153.0 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates August 15, 2012 from vendor data and other sources
This table may be freely distributed

Some quick comments. Wow, Samsung is now almost twice as big as number 2 (Apple) which is more than twice as big as number 3 (Nokia). The world has completely flipped from what it was like just 18 months ago, when Nokia was more than twice the size of Apple which was twice as big as Samsung. Samsung 'is' the New Nokia. And Samsung hits another unprecedented milestone this quarter, becoming the first ever smartphone maker to sell 50 million units in a single quarter.

And Nokia's decline continues the fastest fall ever witnessed in the mobile handset industry and across all Fortune 500 sized giant corporations, the Nokia fall from grace is the world record destruction of the previous global market leading brand. And what is the path that Nokia follows? Check out Motorola. It has now fallen to 10th place. Other interesting position switches RIM has now fallen out of the Top 5 (replaced by Chinese ZTE which is experiencing very strong growth globally, similar to how Samsung was doing in smartphones about a year or two ago). Ok. Then lets look at the operating system table:

BIGGEST SMARTPHONE OPERATING SYSTEMS BY UNIT SALES IN Q2 2012

Rank . OS Platform . . . . . . Units . . . . . Market share  . . Was in Q1 of 2012
1 . . . . Android . . . . . . . . . 102.4 M . . . . 66.9 % . . . . . . . ( 55.6 %)
2 . . . . iOS  . . . . . . . . . . . . 26.0 M . . . . 17.0 % . . . . . . . ( 24.2 %)
3 . . . . Blackberry . . . . . . . . 7.8 M . . . . . 5.1 % . . . . . . . (  7.6 %)
4 . . . . Symbian  . . . . . . . . . 5.0 M . . . . . 3.3 % . . . . . . . (  5.4 %) 
5 . . . . Windows Phone . . . . 4.6 M . . . . . 3.0 % . . . . . . . (   1.6 %)
6 . . . . bada  . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 M . . . . . 2.7 % . . . . . . . (   2.6 %)
7 . . . . MeeGo . . . . . . . . . .  1.2 M . . . . . 0.8 % . . . . . . . (   1.5 %)
8 . . . . Windows Mobile . . . . 0.3 M . . . . . 0.2 % . . . . . . . (   0.3 %)
others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  1.6 M . . . . . 1.0 % . . . . . . . (   1.1 %)
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153.0 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates August 15, 2012 from vendor data and other sources
This table may be freely distributed

So Android solidifies its lead at the top, becoming the first smartphone operating system to ship a million smartphones per day over the quarter. The growth rate compared to just 3 months earlier is also staggering, Android has now reached two thirds of all smartphones sold. Apple's iOS is in solid second place with no challengers in sight, but is losing ground as we await the iPhone 5 release. Symbian still holds the sales lead over all Windows Phone sales, but WinPho finally passes bada in single-quarter unit sales, powered by the heavy push by Nokia of its (now obsolete) Lumia line in Q2 powered by the biggest launch marketing budget ever seen in mobile handsets. Windows Mobile is almost vanished. Nokia's MeeGo platform is now in its decline as the CEO pulled the plug on even sales in some of its strongest markets, most of those MeeGo sales that remain are now from China (where new handset maker Jolla a Finland-based start-up out of ex-Nokia staff is promising their first MeeGo based device out before the end of the year, and have secured a reseller deal with China's biggest handset retailer chain). We may see some level of MeeGo resurgence, and trust at least Jolla to release their MeeGo sales numbers officially, that we don't need to dig and beg and calculate estimates of what Nokia may or may not have sold per quarter as the CEO fears MeeGo based devices. Also Q3 will be interesting, as almost all of Windows Phone sales now come from the Nokia Lumia series, which was instantly Osborned by Microsoft when they decided not to allow any current Windows Phone 7.5 OS devices to be upgraded to the new Windows Phone 8. So I am expecting Q3 sales for Lumia - and Windows Phone - to decline. We may see a see-saw battle between bada and Windows Phone to the end of the year and beyond.. (With Samsung and Intel's new smarpthone OS Tizen about to launch before Christmas. Exciting times in new operating systems). Finally, lets look at the installed base, the most relevant table when considering any developers out there who need to think of their platfrom investments in smartphones.

INSTALLED BASE OF SMARTPHONES BY OPERATING SYSTEM AS OF Q2 2012

Rank . OS Platform . . . . . . Units . . . . . Market share  . . Was in Q1 of 2012
1 . . . . Android . . . . . . . . . 427 M . . . . . 41 % . . . . . . . . ( 32 %)
2 . . . . Symbian . . . . . . . . 259 M . . . . . 25 % . . . . . . . . ( 30 %)
3 . . . . iOS  . . . . . . . . . . . 198 M . . . . . 19 % . . . . . . . . ( 18 %)
4 . . . . Blackberry  . . . . . . 108 M . . . . . 10 % . . . . . . . . ( 11 %)
5 . . . . bada . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 M . . . . .  2 % . . . . . . . . (   2 %)
6 . . . . Windows Phone . . . . 14 M . . . . . 1 % . . . . . . . . (   1 %)
7 . . . . Windows Mobile . . . . 13 M  . . . .  1 % . . . . . . . . (   2 %)
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 M . . . . .  2 % . . . . . . . . (   3 %)
TOTAL Installed Base . . . 1,059 M smartphones in use at end of Q2 2012
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates August 15, 2012 from vendor data and other sources
This table may be freely distributed

So the installed base is relatively stable, understandibly, as we have many years of sales in those numbers, so a spike of success in one platform over another will not immediately shift the global installed base. Yet, we are well into more than 1 Billion smartphones in use worldwide and Android now powers four out of every ten smartphones in use. Symbian is still second at one fourth of all smartphones in use, and Apple is inching towards being inside one in five smartphones in use. Blackberry has fallen to one tenth, and the battle in on for who gets to be the fifth ecosystem bada continues its strong showing (Microsoft's two entrants are ranked sixth and seventh respectively - both with only 1% of the installed base of all smartphones in use globally, thus nowhere near the overhyped 'third ecosystem').

So if you are a developer, thats your world there. Android is obvious. iOS if you develop in the Industrialized World markets, Symbian if you develop for Emerging World markets as your second choice and obviously Blackberry only if you do enterprise apps. Incidentially the smartphone replacement cycle keeps shrinking. The total smartphone installed base was replaced in the past 18 months, meaning the average replacement rate is now 9 months. This is not 'reality' for average consumers due to new sales to first-time buyers and 2 year contract cycles in many markets, but when measuring total installed base, and total sales, ie to get the metrics of total installed base replacement, and average replacement cycle, we get 18 months now, for total installed base replacement sales, and thus an average replacement cycle of 9 months for this industry. Also do remember, this is a mathematical average, those who replace their smartphones twice per year or more often, will cause the mathematical average to be skewed to a higher (faster) number. But yes, compared to say television sets with an average replacement cycle of 7 years or PCs with about 3.5 years, we in mobile, specifically smartphones, have now an average replacement cycle of only 9 months. Amazing!

INDIVIDUAL BRANDS RATED

So then lets look at the players in the Digital Jambore. How did our fave tech brands and providers do in the past three months? Lets proceed like always, in order of size, largest first.

SAMSUNG - 50.4 million smartphones, 32.9% market share, profitable - A
Last 6 quarters market share: 13% - 16% - 21% - 23% - 31% - 33%

South Korean Samsung is doing nothing but good news in smartphones. A steady strong growth rate in total sales and more importantly, also in market share. The company is doing this profitably, this is textbook perfection in execution. We hear of ever more new Android models coming out and bada keeps growing and the new Tizen OS is under way, soon to have its first handsets released.

Here is the split of Samsung smartphone sales by platform for Q2 of 2012:
Android . . . . . . . . . 91%
bada . . . . . . . . . .. . 8%
Windows Phone . . . 1% 
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates August 15, 2012 from vendor data and other sources
This table may be freely distributed 

Samsung is clear top dog now, almost twice as big as its nearest rival in smartphones, Apple. And Samsung is nearly 5 times as big as its long-term rival Nokia, which less than two years ago was four times as big as Samsung in smartphones. Sweet times indeed in Seoul. Samsung earns a solid A

APPLE - 26.0 million smartphones, 17.0% market share, profitable, B-
Last 6 quarters market share 18% - 19% - 14% - 24% - 24% - 17%

Everyone's favorite tech brand, Apple had a surprisingly big drop in its unit sales and market share this Q2 from Q1. Far bigger drop than usual. I explained in my Apple Q2 results blog that this is partly due of course to the one-new-iPhone-per-year release cycle (that Apple has to abandon now, that the average replacement cycle is faster than that, Apple needs at least two new models per year) and that we await the iPhone 5 sometime in September. But the fall was bigger, and partly that was due to the late launch of the iPhone 4S and its exceptionally strong peak sales this past Christmas. The 4S is suffering in particular when compared to the various Galaxy models (Galaxy Note's huge screen perhaps the most) and the Galaxy S3 is getting all the hype right now before the iPhone 5 is announced. If I was Apple, I'd find a way to announce the iPhone 5 as soon as possible, just to cut into those Samsung sales growth numbers, haha..

So, Apple was of course hugely profitable but here in this contest, the amount of profits is irrelevant, huge profits this quarter at the cost of winning the decade-long smartphone OS war, is very shortsighted indeed, better to optimize profit and market share to win the long game. All we want, is for the contender to be profitable in its smarpthone races, excess profits are good news for Wall Street and short-term investors but not meaningful in the Bloodbath, where long term viability is the point. So Apple gets no bonus for its massive profit haul, only that it clearly did good being profitable where many rivals are not. Apple scores a B-, a good but not excellent score. 

NOKIA - 10.2 million smartphones, 6.7% market share, loss-making, F
Last 6 quarters market share 24% - 16% - 14% - 13% - 8% - 7%

Finland's Nokia has established the world record collapse of a global market leader and now with CEO Stephen Elop continuing on his mad Nokia-destruction strategy, the record is only being made worse. We hear that Nokia's Lumia series is so hated, that four out of ten who buy it rate it that bad, they give it a rating of 1 on the scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is best. We hear that the Lumia series has the worst sales success, and biggest return rates Nokia has ever seen. Even after the biggest launch money ever thrown at any handset, and that added with carriers/operators using their biggest launch marketing ever, like AT&T did in the USA, the result is pitiful. Nokia and Microsoft had a combined market share of 34% the previous quarter, when this partnership was announced. Now three quarters into Nokia's Lumia sales, the Windows Phone total sales, Nokia and all other Windows Phone partners, achieved 3% market share in Q2. The total Windows and Nokia partership achieved.. 8% of the global smartphone market, this counting all still existing Symbian and MeeGo Nokia smartphone sales as well (which exceed Windows Phone sales obviously). So Nokia and Microsoft separately were worth more than one third of the total global smartphone market only 18 months ago. Then they announced their partnership, and proceeded to destroy this opportunity. Today they have managed to capture only less than one quarter of that, 8% rather than 34%. Totally pathetic. Oh, and heading to the end of the year? Nokia smartphone market share that now is 6.7% will be down to between 2% and 3%, counting all Lumia/Windows Phone, Symbian and MeeGo sales, combined. Utter total market share disaster, unprecedented speed in self-induced market collapse in history.

And now we hear that all Lumia sales are collapsing due to the Osborning of the Windows Phone 7.5 series. Nokia has lowered its retail price of the Lumia 900 in the USA with two year contract to 19 dollars (from 99 dollars just two months ago). Nokia is throwing 50 Euro vouchers to Nokia Lumia buyers in Germany that can be used in various retail outlets like Ikea.. to try to soften the blow of the damage.

And meanwhile we hear that highly profitable and desirable - indeed award-winning N9 smartphones on MeeGo are having their sales discontinued in many of the early N9 markets. And further, Nokia has totally mismanaged the demand and sales of the 808 PureView which has its demand far exceeding supply. Nokia smartphone unit reports Nokia-record losses (it was reporting Nokia-record profits just before this Windows partnership was announced). Why didn't Nokia management bother to explore the 808 PureView market demand correctly and adjust rapidly for its surprisingly strong demand? This is the most expensive Symbian based smartphone and any missed sales here, are totally lost profits to help cover the huge costs of the losses in the Lumia Windows Phone unit? Because Nokia CEO doesn't want Symbian success, even if that means bigger losses in the smartphone unit.

And what did we just hear this past week? That yes, still today, in 2012, half of Nokia users still prefer QWERTY inputs over touch screens (which only had a third of Nokia owners preferring those). Why oh why oh why, would Nokia release FOUR separate Lumia smarpthones running Windows Phone, all with touch screens, and none with even a slider QWERTY variant, when Nokia invented the QWERTY and has had QWERTY options on its top-end smartphones always, from the original Communicator models to the E7, N900 and N950. This has been known inside Nokia always, yet the CEO refuses to let QWERTY variants of the Lumia smartphones be made. He deliberately is pissing off half of Nokia's loyal customers with these highly undesirable paperweights. Oh, and yes, there were 13 obvious design, marketing and launch faults in the line at launch which doomed the Lumia series as I told you on this blog. Now the actual end-user experience has 101 faults (actually, now with even more Lumia! upgraded to 121 faults!). No wonder this series has failed utterly in its launch and many carriers refused to take any Lumia at all, like Verizon and China Mobile. And now with the Lumia series Osborned, T-Mobile for example in Germany refuses to even launch the Lumia 900.

Here is the split of Nokia smartphones by platform for Q2 of 2012:
Symbian  . . . . . . . . 49%
Windows Phone . . . 39%
MeeGo  . . . . . . . . . 12%
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates August 15, 2012 from vendor data and other sources
This table may be freely distributed

The rumors have started once again that Nokia may be sold. Lenovo and Samsung are already rumored to be sniffing around and we already heard earlier that Microsoft had actually considered buying Nokia this Spring, but decided against it. We may see the end of this brand soon. But yes, Q2 was miserable for Nokia, but Q3 will be far worse (Standard and Poor's has just downgraded Nokia deeper into the classification of 'junk' - yes two more downgrade notches today!). Yet, how can I score them? Nokia smartphones in Q2 sees crashing sales, collapsing market share and generating huge losses, with no hope in sight. A failing grade of F is all I can come up with, I wish I could give a worse grade to Nokia.

HTC - 8.8 million smartphone sales, market share 5.8%, profitable, B
Last 6 quarter market share - 10% - 11% - 10%- 6% - 5% - 6%

Taiwanese HTC seems to be turning a corner, its sudden big fall has been ended and several well-received smartphones are hitting stores. But somehow HTC can't seem to get the same level of success on the same platform(s) as Samsung, especially obviously Android. Yet it did do good solid growth of 11% in one quarter, twice the growth rate of the industry, and clawed back one point of market share. Hopefully this is now the sign of a growing strong HTC to join in the battle. HTC has passed RIM to take fourth ranking in the big table, so there is plenty to cheer in Taipei. I rate the HTC quarter a solid B.

ZTE - 8.0 Million smartphone sales, market share 5.2%, profitable, A
Last 6 quarters market share 2% - 3% - 3% - 4% - 4% - 5%

China's ZTE is the new Asian smartphone powerhouse. It doesn't get to the top with flashy superphones like the iPhone 4S or Galaxy S3, it does it through the low end of the market, with low-cost smartphones, in the Emerging World markets, but essentially, eating Nokia's remaining market in the low-end of the price pyramid. They have now found optimal price points, feature-sets, and are reaching the resale and carrier relations to sustain the growth, expect ZTE to continue to grow by faster rates than the industry overall. ZTE kicked out RIM out of the Top 5 and are now a major player in the smartphone wars. I grade the ZTE performance in Q2 at a clear A.

RIM - 7.8 Million smartphone sales, market share 5.1%, loss-making - F
Last 6 quarters market share 14% - 12% - 9% - 9% - 8% - 5%

Canadian Reseach in Motion, RIM looked like it had stabilized its situation, almost. Its big fall in market share looked like it had ended, and for Christmas 2011, Blackberries actually saw increasing unit sales (while market share was flat). I did think RIM had managed to turn a corner. It didn't. Now the fall is huge - for once even worse than Nokia - and RIM's market share is now at the level of only one in 20 smartphones sold is a Blackberry. At its peak, RIM sold more than one in five smartphone in the world. RIM has tumbled down in the rankings, falling from a strong 4th place ranking last quarter to out of the top 5 and falling to sixth this quarter, behind both HTC and ZTE. Just two years ago RIM was the world's second largest smartphone maker. So fickle is the Smartphone Bloodbath. The company is reporting big losses and the news about the savior platform, BB 10, is still too far away, the first smartphones to run on BB 10 will not hit sales for Christmas of this year, they will arrive early next year. Will RIM survive until then, nobody knows. There is gossip about the company being sold. How do I grade RIM in Q2 of 2012? This is another F grade, totally failing performance.

SONY - 7.5 Million smartphone unis, 4.9% market share, loss-making, C-
Last 6 quarters market share 5% - 5% - 6% - 6% - 5% - 5%

Japan's Sony is still in the process of taking full control of its past partnership with Ericsson. The unit is still not profitable but it did grow sales about at the rate of the industry and kept its market share. There is nothing astonishing on the horizon but solid Sony marketing efforts to roll out great devices for the Christmas season. I am still expecting a big Playstation Portable compatible Sony Android smartphone, it could be a hit product of the season. The performance this Q2, not good as it is loss-making but holding steady, I grade it a C-

HUAWEI - 7.0 Million unit sales, market share of 4.6%, profitable, C
Last 6 quarters market share 3% - 4% - 5% - 5% - 5% - 5%

Chinese Huawei had the typical Chinese new year sales bounce in Q1, but its sales into Q2 was flat, causing a small drop in market share. The company is aiming at higher price points than ZTE and feeling more of the squeeze. I give them a C grade.

LG - 6.5 Million smartphone sales, 4.2% market share, profitable, B
Last 6 quarters market share  5% - 5% - 5% - 5% - 4% - 4%

South Korean LG is slowly picking up steam. It actually grew sales faster than the industry this past quarter and does this profitably, giving it a good B grade.

MOTOROLA (GOOGLE) - 6 Million sales, 3.9% market share, loss-making - D+
Last 6 quarters market share 4% - 4% - 4% - 3% - 4% - 4%

Google's new acquisition, Motorola grew sales and picked up some market share but is still highly unprofitable. Google just announced massive layoffs to cure some of that excess fat they still have. Moto has tumbled now to 10th ranking in the Top 10, but as they now are growing faster than the industry, they can probably still remain in the Top 10 for the near future. For valiant growth efforts, some accolades but unprofitable business is not sustainable business. Thus I grade Moto a D+

Thats the Top 10 right there. Now lets turn to look at the operating system platforms, by size.

OPERATING SYSTEMS BY SIZE

ANDROID - 102.4 million smartphones, 66.9% market share, A
Last 6 quarters market share 32% - 40% - 47% - 49% - 56% - 67%

Google's Android now powers two out of every three smartphones sold worldwide. They are running away also with the installed base globally powering now 4 out of every 10 smartphones in use. In this past quarter, Android smartphones outsold the number 2 platfrom - Apple's iOS - by almost 4 to 1 !!!  This is the obvious global platform and if Google manages to continue to sell two out of every three smartphones, the Android OS will grow to exceed the total PC based Windows installed base as early as Q1 of 2014 !!! (And this is ignoring any Android based tablets or other devices). No wonder Microsoft is utterly panicking about their smartphone strategy, Windows 8 etc. Yes, you heard it here first, mark your calendars, in early 2014, less than two years from now, Android installed base will exceed total Windows installed base, PCs and smartphones and tablets, all counted together. Is Google's world domination plan working? I'd say yes.. As to the Q2 performance, this strong growth is a clear A for Android.

iOS - 26 Million smartphones, 17.0% market share, B-
Last 6 quarters market share 18% - 19% - 14% - 24% - 24% - 17%

Not much to add to the above. Apple is settling to that one fifth share globally and its installed base is also approaching that level now at already 19%. Until we see the next iPhone 5, this is a good but not excellent quarter for Cupertino, I say B-

BLACKBERRY - 7.8 Million smartphones, 5.1% market share, F
Last 6 quarters market share 14% - 12% - 9% - 9% - 8% - 5%

Blackberry has fallen off The Cliff, and is now in free-fall. The BB 10 is likely to come too late to save the company. I grade this Quarter an F.

SYMBIAN - 5.0 Million smartphones, 3.3% market share, F
Last 6 quarters market share: 26% - 17% - 15% - 11% - 5% - 3%

Can you imagine what we have witnessed? Two years ago Symbian was the world's bestselling smartphone OS, growing strongly (growing more than Apple's iPhone for example, for year 2010) and then we have seen the global collapse. Just 18 months ago, Symbian powered one out of every four smartphones sold worldwide. Today its market share has fallen to 3%. In just 18 months, Symbian went from 26% to 3%, losing literally nine out of every ten customers it had (and only managing to convert one of the lost customers to the new Windows Phone OS, effectively gifting the remaining eight loyal Nokia Symbian smartphone users to Android or iOS or bada). This is world record destruction of a global market leader. It was all self-induced and unnecessary, as Symbian based smarpthones were highly profitable at the time for everyone from Nokia to Fujitsu, Sharp, Panasonic, Samsung etc. Its like Coca Cola suddenly looking at its dominating world position, and abandoning the magic formula and deciding to use Red Bull intead... Madness. Oh, and this is the first quarter that the non-Nokia sales of Symbian were so tiny, they don't move the needle anymore. So now, for the first time ever, we can truly say Symbian = Nokia.

Anyway, take good notes and pay attention to the total destruction of Nokia and Symbian, this is a world record in corporate destruction we are witnessing and Stephen Elop will go down in history as the worst CEO ever of any company - in any industry - of all time. He will be the laughing stock in MBA case studies, where students will time and again wonder how stupid can one CEO be. Meanwhile Symbian in Q2, even as Nokia failed to capitalize on highly desirable 808 PureView sales opportunities, I grade Symbian an F.

WINDOWS PHONE - 4.6 Million smartphones, 3.0% market share, B
Last 6 Quarters market share: 2% - 1% - 1% - 1% - 2% - 3%

If Windows Phone actual market performance was 'pure' and 'honest' in the past three quarters, then yes, growing market share from 1% to 2% to 3% in three consecutive quarters would be a good sign. Except it was done with Microsoftian smoke and mirrors. The sales 'growth' was achieved by murdering two giant platforms as pure cannon fodder, to achieve this modest gain. That was Windows Mobile (which is not compatible with Windows Phone) and Symbian. Look at the situation just a year ago, Windows Mobile was still safely outselling all Windows Phone. The combined market share of Windows Mobile, Windows Phone and Symbian was.. 19% ! Today, their combined market share is 6%. So this supposed 'gain' to Windows Phone, was done by the wholesale sacrifice of 'partner' platforms, and still done so weakly, that two out of every three customers walked away from the proposition - to rival smartphone platforms (Android, iOS and bada). So that 'gain' to Windows Phone is marketing bullsh*t and a cruel gutting of in particular Nokia's previously superb market position. But we don't judge the OS by its past history, I only note it here so you don't mis-analyze this supposed 'growth'. When I judge Windows Phone in isolation of the brothers killed to get this growth, yes, Windows Phone did grow faster than the industry this past quarter, and achieved a market share of 3%. Note, that this is very likely a peak for Windows Phone, as its market share is sure to fall into Q3 as the whole Lumia line from Nokia is now Osborned, and almost all other Windows Phone partners have already abandoned the platform. But for Q2, I give Microsoft's Windows Phone a grade of B.

BADA - 4.1 Million smartphones, market share of 3%, B
Last 6 quarters market share - 1% - 2% - 2% - 2% - 3% - 3%

Where Microsoft's growth was achieved by murder of Symbian and Windows Mobile, the bada steady growth is organic and real. It is mostly seen in Emerging World markets but it is steady growth by Samsung. The installed base of bada is now closing in on 20 million cumulative shipments which I expect Samsung to announce sometime soon. bada is the undisputed 'Fifth Ecosystem' in smartphones today by installed base, and while it briefly fell to 6th ranking in new sales in Q2, I expect that to be corrected again into Q3 as the Windows Phone sales are collapsing now. I grade Samsung's bada at a solid B

MEEGO - 1.2 Million smartphones, 0.8% market share, C 
Last 6 quarters market share n/a - n/a - n/a - 1% - 2% - 1% 

MeeGo was almost destroyed and to be forgotten, were it not for a lifeboat to the burning platform, called Jolla (Jolla means 'dinghy' or small boat in Finnish). Jolla is a start-up by ex-Nokia MeeGo and Maemo staff, with strong smartphone experience. They will be launching their first MeeGo based smartphone for Christmas and we can see new sales into the MeeGo platform from the Jolla folks. But as the Nokia-powered peak of MeeGo sales was passed in Q1 and now remaining N9 sales are winding down, we can't grade MeeGo for better than a C.

Thats the big platforms right there. Windows Mobile not really worth mentioning anymore, I will stop reporting on it next quarter. 

FEW OTHER SMARTPHONE STATS

Android Split by Manufacturers for Q2 of 2012:
Samsung 45%
HTC 8%
ZTE 8%
Sony 7%
Huawei 7%
LG 6%
Motorola 6%
Others 13%
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates August 15, 2012 from vendor data and other sources
This table may be freely distributed

Windows Phone split by Manufacturers for Q2 of 2012
Nokia 87%
Samsung 9%
HTC 4%
Note: The above table is only for Windows Phone OS, it does not include the incompatible Windows Mobile smartphone sales which counted for about 300,000 units only remaining sales in Q2 of 2012
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates August 15, 2012 from vendor data and other sources
This table may be freely distributed

There you go, another quarter done in the Smartphones Bloodbath we have now witnessed for two and a half years. And as I have been warning the excitement of this battle is coming to a close. Android has an unassailable lead in operating systems and very nearly so too has Samsung now in the smartphone handsets.

Incidentially, I am foreseeing the end of Bloodbath towards the last quarter of this year 3, the Digital Jamboree, and I anticipate less intense reporting on this area of the mobile industry into next year, just so you followers and readers know. It hardly makes sense to report on the tiny minnows of this industry where a Windows Phone 8 with perhaps 2% market share is 'battling it out' against Tizen and bada and MeeGo for the glory of who gets to call themselves the fifth ecosystem haha.. The big battle is now already clearly decided, the winners are Samsung and Apple in handsets, and Android and iOS is operating systems.

Three years ago when I announced this stage of the smartphones war to become very intense (who else knew it would get this bloody, year 2009 had been stable as anything haha) that I labeled the start of year 2010 to be the Smartphone Bloodbath. But back then I expected these platform wars to run through at least the middle of this decade, perhaps to the end of the decade, much like the gaming platform wars, not like the rapid end of the race like we saw with say, Blueray. Still, unless something truly dramatic happens towards the end of this year, I am expecting our Bloodbath series to come to a natural close around Q4 of 2012 when the two dominant platforms, Android and iPhone will own close to 90% of the market and on the handset side, Samsung and the iPhone will sell six out of every ten smartphones globally. If that is the case, there will be no point to these blogs anymore..

One Plug - if you are interested in the handset industry stats more deeply than this blog, don't forget my TomiAhonen Phone Book 2012. That volume has over 90 tables and charts of handset industry stats. And now I have a special offer - as the 2012 edition of the Phone Book will be released very soon, I have a special two-for-one offer, get the current edition (2010 Phone Book) and upcoming 2012 edition for the price of only one at the same low price of only 9.99 Euros.You can see the table of contents and ordering info of the TomiAhonen Phone Book 2010 edition here.

Comments

[jo]

why some people put window phone 4m and bada 4.2m?

i believe windows phone is overshipped somewhere some even not being sold to retailers/operators yet, waiting on a warehouse gathering dust.

nothing have happen to nokia sale 4m out of thin air, number should decrease next quarter due orsbourne effect and overshipping

[dp]

When I first read about MS-Nokia "alliance", a 1.5 years ago, I thought this will happen: Nokia will die and WP7 will survive.

Elop is not Nokia's CEO, he is still an MS executive trying to sell as many windows as possible and trying to expand their monopoly.

They destroyed Europe's greatest tech company of all time. How pathetic we Europeans actually are? What are we, a freaking colony!?

dp

[JD!]

Symbian still sells more than WP. It is known truth and numbers speak as well. But who cares when Board of Nokia is Dumb, Deaf and Blind...

As can be compared to Gandhi's 3 Monkeys:
1. Don't see Bad.
2. Don't hear Bad.
3. Don't speak Bad.

[tired]

Feel like going for a serious drinking binge to mourn the death of a beloved friend. sad that this once great brand has be brought to it's knees by a Canadian idiot blowing smoke up it's ass. the share holders should due this idiot as well as the whole damn board! and the worst part is some idiot is going to see the damn wp percentage as a gain for Nokia!

[AtTheBottomOfTheHilton]

@dp

Europeans as consumers can protest by not buying a Windows Phone product. I know at least I do and as far as I can tel, Windows Phone sales aren't doing that well.

Nokia was the last cell phone manufacturer in Europe and that is how easily it can be dismantled. I think it's time to legislate against this so it doesn't happen in the future.

[foo]

Tomi,

Have you already written something about the Firefox OS?

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/b2g/

Do you think it has any chance?

[anobserver]

@dp:

Europeans are indeed pathetic, and it is not the first time that a worldwide leader has been completely lost through the incompetence of the European management and the ruthlessness of the North American party.

Just see how Gemplus (French SIM and smart-card manufacturer, then worldwide leader) was ultimately taken over by Texas Pacific Group.

@AtTheBottomOfTheHilton:

Forget about laws. The EU Commission is there to ensure that markets remain "free and unimpeded".

[KPOM]

I think you are undermarking Apple. Let's see how the courtroom strategy works, for one thing. An Apple victory in a US court could have a significant financial impact and could alter Samsung's OS strategy (perhaps pushing them more toward Windows Phone or Bada). Also, Android still seems to have little success breaking into the tablet space. The two markets are intertwined from Apple's perspective, and it could be the key to a gradual proliferation of iOS devices.

[u1w1e]

Samsung, HTC, ZTE, Huawei and of course Nokia will offer WP8-based phones. WP8 will support SD memory cards, better displays, better cameras ... and there will be no osborning for a while;-) I think they have a very good chance to become the 3rd ecosystem. But I doubt this will save Nokia.

[dp]

About NOKIA and Europe:

There's absolutely no chance that Americans would allow something like this to happen to one of their companies. We may talk about free market, globalization and brotherly love as much as we can, but thing is, nobody else in the world is THIS STUPID.

[bjarneh]

Steve Jobs greatest power was that he could turn obvious lies onto the truth; or at least into something very similar to the truth as everyone seemed to believe him. The need for a huge app-store in order to succeed with smart phones is one of those lies; now it seems to be the common belief.

How many "apps" (or programs as we used to call them) do the average user install? 5000? 2000? 1000? Nope, it's around 40, and they are mostly free, and users spend very little time on them compared to browsing/facebook/mail/twitter. Most of the apps earn no money, are a complete nightmare to maintain across multiple platforms (IOS/Android etc.), and are almost never used.

If there was a way to reach all smart-phones at once things would be a lot simpler right? Well there is, it's one of the worst languages ever made (Javascript) in combination with a technology which is being used for something completely different then it was intended for (HTML); but it does work on just about any smart-phone out there. It is not tied down by Apple's or Google's censorship, you get to keep 100% of the profits from your program yourself, and it's maintenance is much simpler.

Hmm, perhaps Steve Jobs was lying when he said that people have stopped searching now and have started to use apps instead, or when he stated that Apple invented the smart-phone; the touch screen... You get the idea, Steve Jobs was a salesman, not a technological genius, he had some serious lying skills though...

A phone with a good browser and clients for: email/facebook/twitter/dropbox/spotify, and good multimedia capabilities is ready to go head to head with the big boys from day 1, throw in 20-30 games of the simple type: angry birds/cut the rope/plants vs. zombies etc. and there really is nothing stopping a new device from becoming huge.

Why did Nokia discontinue the N9 after only 6 months, when they still sell the N8 in all markets after 2.5 years? Well the N9 had all that matters; the look the feel, good multimedia support, a good HTML5 browser, clients for facebook twitter etc., it would have become a huge mess for Nokia if the kept it alive because it would have outsold their other models. They didn't even dare release it properly, afraid that it would interfere with their Windows strategy, and it would have. For Nokia's sake it would be best never to have release the N9 at all, when they were planning a Windows migration.

Since people are switching smart-phones quite often, and they all support what will be the dominant platform (HTML5), I don't think final winners in this market can be decided just yet, but who knows..

[93tid]

I do not agree that Elop is most incompetent CEO in history. If you evaluate his actions from the perspective of destroying Nokia as his final goal, then he has been absolutely brilliant in his execution.

[Matthew Raymond]

@Foo:

Firefox OS is literally non-existent with regard to Q2 sales, so there wouldn't be any listed for this blog post. However, I do think it has a bright future for the following reasons:

1) Many apps are already made using Web standards (see PhoneGap, WebOS, HTML-based Metro apps, et cetera).

2) You can develop apps using the Firefox browser (and any browser that supports the necessary Javascript APIs) as an emulator.

3) You can deploy from any website without paying someone for the privilege. (You can even set up your own store.)

4) The entire UI and all standard apps are modifiable/replaceable using Web standards.

5) The underlying browser engine is faster than it would be on phone operating systems Android or Windows Phone because it uses native code with direct access to the kernel. As a result, apps ported from Web-based frameworks like PhoneGap should run faster than their Android versions given the same hardware.

6) You can sync your desktop browser and phone to use the same apps and data on both your desktop and mobile device at the same time.

And even if it dies, Firefox OS is open source software implementing open standards, so you can reuse any part of it in another OS.

[Rod]

I have a question concerning Samsung's numbers. For some time I've been wondering why they seem to be running away with the Android market in terms of market share and profitability. Unless I'm completely off-base, their smartphones don't seem substantially better (other than having a seemingly endless variety) than those of HTC or Motorola.

Given their recent admission of US tablet sales (suggesting 98%+ occur outside the US), what level of confidence do you ascribe to their 50m smartphone sales?

[CN]

@Rod

Fair question. Others are thinking the same:

http://www.asymco.com/2012/08/13/how-many-smartphones-did-samsung-ship-in-q2/

[MA]

Actually, living in Germany I have little to no sympathy for Nokia based on their past performance as a parasitic job killer. I suspect the Rumanians feel equally so. Their modus operandi was to collect subsidies, build factories on the subsidies and job promises, run them till the subsidies ran out, close up and fire the staff and move on to the next round. That hurt their reputation in Germany and they never really recovered from that in the eyes of many. I know that I didn't even look at a Nokia phone after they closed the Bochum site. I still feel they deserve to go down in flames.

[khim]

Boot2Gecko is another solution in search of a problem.

Frankly: what problem can it solve?

Too high resources requirements of an Android? This is moot point: by the time B2G will be ready for prime time Android will work fine on $50 headset.

The inability to write software purely in HTML/JS? It can only solve it if everyone (or at least majority) will start using it - and you need to somehow attract developers and user to your platform before that magic point.

IOW: B2G have exactly ZERO relevance. Most likely it'll be mobile world version of Esperanto - something which just refuses to die even if it have no chances to succeed.

To understand why you can read excellent article by Joel: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html

If that's too long for you then I'll include short quote which explains everything:

-- cut --
A lot of software developers are seduced by the old "80/20" rule. It seems to make a lot of sense: 80% of the people use 20% of the features. So you convince yourself that you only need to implement 20% of the features, and you can still sell 80% as many copies.

But when you start marketing your "lite" product, and you tell people, "hey, it's lite, only 1MB," they tend to be very happy, then they ask you if it has *their* crucial feature, and it doesn't, so they don't buy your product.
-- cut --

THAT is why you need massive appstore. THAT is why you need APIs beyond HTML5. THAT is why B2G is doomed.

If you have tiny appstore with 1000 applications then typically people have dozen of reasons to avoid your product. HTML5 applications can reduce this number to maybe five or six. If it's something like Microsoft's appstore with 50'000 applications then it's something like two or may be even one.

But in the end if people have ONE reason not to buy your product they will buy something else.

P.S. Note that when iPhone was presented Apple pushed HTML5 as a primary development platform for the iPhone, too. It's not clear if they were just not ready to present Native SDK or if they truly believed in HTML5, but in the end it does not matter: Apple understood their problem, they fixed it and now "there is an app for that". Similarly with Android: initially they planned to use only CPU-agnostic Dalvik solution and 90% of developers were even ready to use just that, but in the end NDK was important part of the strategy. By now most Android users have at least one app with native component. Remove it - and phone will not be bought (this is what Intel found to it's dismay).

[Mr Eric Wu]

I think that when looking at Nokia figures, now we are 18 months down the line from the Feb 11th announcement, we should exclude Symbian and Meego. It is clear that Nokia has killed them, and either fired or sold off the staff that had any ability to write them. Therefore a better figure for Nokia would be 4M/2.6%. Including Symbian and Meego is just helping to convince Mr Elop that things are still okay.

In my view Nokia is now hanging on for dear life. Every press release, every line in the company report is cleverly written and aims to hide the truth. Like pointing out how your cash in the bank increased, but ignoring that you took out EUR300M loan to do it. Or that the current range of Lumias will be supported well past the launch of Windows 8 (e.g. supported until at least October, not supported by Windows 8). I think in this respect they are now very good at something - it is amazing how lean and mean you can be when you have no real money coming in.

Regarding Jolla I am surprised that no one has considered a possible outcome that they will be brought by Samsung or Intel or even China Mobile? Jolla means boat or dingy and no one goes to sea intentionally in a dingy unless it is a real emergency and they hope to be taken aboard the next tanker or cruise ship. I think it is a clever idea by the MeeGo lot - e.g. gamble their redundancy in the hope they land in Samsung's ship. For example (and I don't know the real figures), say 50 Meego engineers could get EUR50,000 redundancy or EUR25,000 Bridge Startup Loan. If they take the money they each walk away with EUR50,000 and each look for a job. Or they combine the money and with EUR1.25M of funding they start Jolla, have some fun writing cool software and then get brought for say EUR5M. Each gets now EUR200,000 and a job doing something they loved doing. Nokia gets rid of the people and cheaper than redundancy too. Everyone's a winner.

[Mr Eric Wu]

@ExNokia I read part of your page, but clearly it is an anti-Tomi blog and not so much a fact based blog. Tomi's writtings are often heavily anti-Elop (and as an ex-Nokian myself) I know what it is like to see the company I word hard for make a right cock up, so I understand the emotion. The fact is that all the Elop-hate (justified or not) is easy to ignore. Your blog is pretty pointless once you ignore the anti-Tomi angle. You can't really expect credibility when you are equally as bad or worse.

Are you really trying to defend the Burning Platforms Memo as not being bad for sales? Because I can tell you that I read the memo before 90% of Nokia and knew instantly it was like a bomb going off. And when the Feb 11th session was done, I was forwarding links of articles about Ratner up to the NLT...

@Baron95 There is a lot of talk of WP8 being better for Nokia. I have heard it a lot, and genuinely people believe it. The trouble is that they said it before of the Lumia 800 and Nokia really cannot keep doing this. Launching Nokia WP8 next week sounds right - announce it now and kill any more sales, then ship it in October - the Nokia way. I agree with you that MeeGo/Tizen/Bada and the rest are just noise, but so is Windows Phone at the moment. Only by the immense amount of financial brute-force is WP getting traction and so while it may get to the 3rd ecosystem spot, it will have to wait for Symbian to finally die and for the traction to take it past the rest. However once in the 3th place, it will probably remain in the category of 'noise' and will drop when the money is withdrawn.

There will never be room for three players in a two horse race.

[Buttface Elop]

I just want to mention that Nokia tried about everything to sell the Windows phones no one wants:

Free XBox360 campaign
100$ voucher
2 for 1 Lumia deals in some countries
The huge huge huge Lumia ads campaigns
Provider offers with contracts.

Especially the 2 for 1 deals make the Windows phone sales look much worse. I bet 99% of all Lumias were "sold" for 1$ together with a provider subscription plan while 99% of the N9s were sold at full price without the huge huge ads and without the voucher or XBox360 or any other extra.

Shame on Stephen Elop. He's a fool.