This is my annual statistical market review of the smartphone global contest. It also is the Q4 quarterly review. Welcome to a cavalcade of numbers and stats
We now have the final numbers reported by all four of the 'Big Four' handset analyst houses: IDC, Canalys, Strategy Analytics and Gartner. As always, I use the average of these four houses as the total market size. (Note, one day after I published the original version of this blog, IDC came with revised numbers including their split across operating systems, and because their total numbers for Q4 and full year 2012 wererevised upwards, I also have now updated my average numbers, up from the original 215.1 million to 217.2 million for Q4 and from 687 million to 697.7 million for the full year 2012. This blog now reflects the latest numbers, this only affects the market share percentages, some that have been reduced slightly due to the larger total market size number now used).
(NOTE: The numbers were revised & corrected after we learned official Huawei shipment numbers for 2012. Also the overall 2012 numbers for the industry changed slightly at a few of the big 4 analyst houses in their final count)
Taking that average number for the market size, I then force a 'best fit' analysis of all published actual sales numbers (such as for Apple) and/or strong consensus opinions (such as the case for Samsung), and add the missing pieces by what other data we may have regionally and on end-user surveys, usage data etc. And I publish the most complete and thorough market share analysis of the smartphone market every quarter, including the full year numbers annually (as today). I also offer my analysis of each brand and how they've done in the just-ended period. This long-running series of blogs is what I call my 'Bloodbath' series as we are in Bloodbath Year 3: Digital Jamboree. If you need the numbers for year 2011, they are here: Full year statistics for 2011 Smartphone Bloodbath Year 2: Electric Boogaloo. with no further ado, lets get to the numbers. I will start wtih the full-year numbers, as over time, this is probably what most will want to find (The Q4 data will be further down in the blog article):
2012 FULL YEAR SMARTPHONE SALES STATISTICS
Rank . Brand . . . . 2012 units . . Share . . 2011 units . . Share . . 2010 units . . Share
1 (2) . Samsung . 215.0 M . . . 30.8% . . . 90.9 M . . . 18.7% . . . 24.0 M . . . . 8.0%
2 (1) . Apple . . . . 135.8 M . . . 19.5% . . . 93.1 M . . . 19.1% . . . 47.5 M . . . . 15.9%
3 (3) . Nokia . . . . . 35.0 M . . . . 5.0% . . 77.3 M . . . 15.9% . . 100.3 M . . . . 33.7%
5 (4) . RIM . . . . . . . 33.2 M . . . . 4.8% . . 52.5 M . . . 10.8% . . . 48.0 M . . . . 16.1%
5 (8) . Huawei . . . . 32.0 M . . . . 4.6% . . 20.0 M . . . . 4.1% . . . . 5.0 M . . . . 1.5%
6 (6) . Sony . . . . . . 31.9 M . . . . 4.6% . . 26.8 M . . . 5.5% . . . 9.5 M . . . . 3.2%
7 (5) . HTC . . . . . . 31.5 M . . . . 4.5% . . 44.6 M . . . 9.2% . . . . 24.6 M . . . . 8.3%
8 (10) . ZTE . . . . . . 30.0 M . . . . 4.3% . . 12.0 M . . . . 2.5% . . . . 3.5 M . . . . . 1.2%
9 (7) . LG . . . . . . . 26.5 M . . . . 3.8% . . 23.3 M . . . . 4.8% . . . . . 7.0 M . . . . 2.4%
10 (-) . Lenovo . . . . 24.9 M . . . . 3.6% . . . - - - . . . . . . . - -
Other . . . . . . . . . . 101.9 M . . . 14.6%
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . 697.7 M . . . . . . . . . 486.0 M . . . . . . . . . . . . 297.8 M
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2013
This data may be freely used and repeated
The smartphone global market grew 44% from 2011 to 2012 and for the full year, smartphones accounted for 39% of all mobile handsets sold in the year, globally. Among the major manufactuers, Samsung topples Apple at the top, becoming for the first time the biggest smartphone maker of the world, a position Nokia held for the first dozen years of the industry and Apple took over briefly for the year 2011.
Motorola drops out of the Top 10 for the first time in smartphone industry history, and Lenovo which two years ago didn't make any smartphones climbs into the Top 10 powered by the LePhone which was only sold in China as late as the summer of 2012. Thats the power of China now being the biggest smartphone market where four out of every ten smartphones are sold.
The race from 3rd ranking (Nokia) to 8th (ZTE) is very tight, separated by only 3.5 million units on an annual basis between the 4th and 8th position. Expect this part of the market to see a lot of competitive pressure in 2013 as Sony has said it wants to be a top 3 maker, Blackberry is hot off the gate in Q1 with the new BB10 operating system, ZTE experimenting with the Firefox OS, and Nokia continuing to struggle with the undesirable Windows Phone OS that faces problems after problems.
2012 FULL YEAR OPERATING SYSTEM MARKET SHARES
Rank . . OS . . . . . . . . 2012 units . . share . . 2011 units . . share . . 2010 units . . share
1 (1) . . Android . . . . . 452 M . . . . . 65% . . . 208 M . . . . . 43% . . . 54 M . . . . . . 18%
2 (2) . . iOS . . . . . . . . 136 M . . . . . 20% . . . . 93 M . . . . . 19% . . . 48 M . . . . . . 16%
3 (4) . . Blackberry . . . . 33 M . . . . . .5% . . . . 52 M . . . . . 11% . . . 48 M . . . . . . 16%
4 (3) . . Symbian . . . . . 19 M . . . . . . 3% . . . 81 M . . . . . 17% . . 116 M . . . . . . 39%
5 (5) . . bada . . . . . . . . .16 M . . . . . . 2% . . . . 9 M . . . . . . 2% . . . 3 M . . . . . . . 1%
6 (6) . . Windows Phone .16 M . . . . . . 2% . . . . 5 M . . . . . . 1% . . . 2 M . . . . . . . 1%
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 M . . . . . . 2%
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . 695 M . . . . . . .. . . . 486 M . . . . . . . . . . . 298 M
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2013
This data may be freely used and repeated
Android powered almost two out of every three smartphones sold in 2012, and Apple's iOS was in one out of five. Former giant Nokia's Symbian tumbles from third to fourth, and Blackberry recaptures 3rd ranking. Samsung's bada continues to outsell Windows Phone, where the so-called 'third ecosystem' finishes year 2012 in solid sixth place, twice as bad as promised. There were some very amusing forecasts about how 'well' Windows Phone would sell smarpthones for the year 2012, forecasts made in 2011. I'll return to analyze those forecasts in an upcoming blog (spoiler alert: I was once again the most accurate forecaster of the handset industry) So next, lets look at the installed base of smarpthone platforms globally:
INSTALLED BASE OF SMARTPHONES BY OPERATING SYSTEM AS OF DECEMBER 31, 2012
Rank . OS Platform . . . . Units . . . Market share Was Q3 2012 . Main Manufacturers of current base
1 . . . . Android . . . . . . . 688 M . . . 53 % . . . . . . ( 48 %) . . . . . . Samsung, HTC, Huawei, Sony, ZTE, LG, Lenovo, Motorola, SonyEricsson
2 . . . . iOS . . . . . . . . . 254 M . . . 19 % . . . . . . ( 19 %) . . . . . . Apple
3 . . . . Symbian . . . . . . 191 M . . . 15 % . . . . . . ( 18 %) . . . . . . Nokia, Sharp, Panasonic, Fujitsu, Samsung, SonyEricsson
4 . . . . Blackberry . . . . 104 M . . . . 8 % . . . . . . ( 9 %) . . . . . . RIM
5 . . . . bada . . . . . . . . . . 26 M . . . 2 % . . . . . . ( 2 %) . . . . . . Samsung
6 . . . . Windows Phone . . 22 M . . . 2 % . . . . . . ( 1 %) . . . . . . Nokia, HTC, Samsung, ZTE
7 . . . . Windows Mobile . . . 7 M . 0.5 % . . . . . . ( 1 %) . . . . . . HTC, Samsung, LG, SonyEricsson, Palm, Motorola
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 M . . . 1 % . . . . . . ( 1 %)
TOTAL Installed Base . 1,320 M smartphones in use at end of 2012
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2013
This data may be freely used and repeated
Android has now passed the half-point where more than half of all smartphones in use worldwide are running Android. Apple is on the brink of reaching one in five smartphones in our pockets in the installed base. Nokia's Symbian keeps falling as the older Symbian phones are traded in. iPhones, Symbian and Blackberry based smartphones have a long afterlife in the second hand market and as hand-me-downs (which are included in these numbers of course, as I measure the full installed base).
The installed base of smartphones is now 1.32 Billion smartphones, almost as many as total installed base of all types of personal computers in use (desktops, laptops, netbooks and tablet PCs, all added together). We'll pass that level now this Spring of 2013. Now lets do the quarterly results:
QUARTERLY SALES
Now lets turn to the more intense and volatile quarterly battle in the Bloodbath Year Three: Digital Jamboree. If you need Q3 numbers, they are here. And now, the final quarter of year 2012, here are the final Q4 results:
TEN BIGGEST SMARTPHONE MAKERS IN Q4 2012 BY UNITS SALES
Rank . . Manufacturer . Units . . . Market Share . Was in Q3 of 2012 . . OS supported (coming),[ending]
1 (1) . . . Samsung . . . 63.9 M . . 29.4 % . . . . . .( 32.8 %) . . . . . . . . . Android, bada, Windows, (Tizen)
2 (2) . . . Apple . . . . . . 47.8 M . . 22.0 % . . . . . . ( 15.7 %) . . . . . . . . . iOS
3 (3) . . . Huawei . . . . . 11.4 M . . . 5.5 % . . . . . . ( 5.5 %) . . . . . . . . . Android, (Tizen)
4 (5) . . . ZTE . . . . . . . 10.9 M . . . 5.3 % . . . . . . ( 5.3 %) . . . . . . . . . Android, Windows, (Firefox)
5 (9) . . . Lenovo . . . . . . 9.4 M . . . 4.3 % . . . . . . ( 4.1 %) . . . . . . . . . Android
6 (4) . . . Sony . . . . . . . 8.7 M . . . 4.0 % . . . . . . ( 5.1 %) . . . . . . . . . Android
7 (8) . . . LG . . . . . . . . . 8.6 M . . . 4.0 % . . . . . . ( 4.2 %) . . . . . . . . . Android
8 (6) . . . HTC . . . . . . . . 7.0 M . . . 3.2 % . . . . . . ( 4.6 %) . . . . . . . . . Android, Windows
9 (7) . . . RIM . . . . . . . . 6.9 M . . . 3.2 % . . . . . . ( 4.3 %) . . . . . . . . . Blackberry
10 (10) . Nokia . . . . . . . 6.6 M . . . 3.0 % . . . . . . ( 3.7 %) . . . . . . . . . Windows, [Symbian], [MeeGo]
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . 36.4 M . . 16.7 % . . . . . . ( 11.6 %) . . . . . . . . . Android, Windows, others, (Tizen), (Sailfish)
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . 217.2 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates February 13, 2012 from vendor data and other sources
This table may be freely distributed
The total smartphone quarterly sales passed the 200 million units per quarter level for the first time ever - it was just 21 months ago, in Q1 of 2011, that the industry passed the 100 million sales per quarter level. The smartphone market grew 27% into the Christmas sales quarter from Q3, and on full year growth, the smartphone market grew 40% from Q4 of 2011. As we are just on the brink of the number, I am no longer certain we will pass the 1 Billion smartphone sales level annually for this new year 2013, we might end this year selling something like 975 million smartphones, but if we miss the 1 Billion level this year, it will only be by a hair. As to mobile phone handset migration from dumbphones to smartphones globally, we are now at the point in Q4, 2012, where 47% of all phones sold worldwide are smartphones.
Then to the chart action. The big mover is Lenovo, jumping up from 9th ranking where they appeared last Quarter as they joined the Top 10 and pushed Motorola out of the Top 10 for the first time ever. While Lenovo is only ramping up sales outside of China (having entered India, Russia, Indonesia etc) their total sales bring Lenovo already into the Top 5 (dropping Sony out of the Top 5 where it was briefly last Quarter, ranked 4th).The rest of the chart is minor jockeying. The Top 3 are settled into Samsung, Apple and Huawei. ZTE and LG saw a change of one ranking, RIM and HTC moved two rankings.
Nokia barely held onto its last place finish in the Top 10, as the 10th ranking. Nokia is being chased by Chinese Yulong/Coolpad, who may well have passed Nokia in unit sales now in Q1 of 2013 as the Chinese celebrate New Year gift-giving, especially as Nokia is having trouble delivering new Windows Phone 8 based updated Lumia smartphones in volume and mostly missed the Chinese New Year sales period. Yulong is ranked one of the bestselling Chinese smartphone brands domestically but I estimated their global sales at 6.1 million for Q4. Since nobody suggests Yulong/Coolpad to have sold more than 6.6 million in the Q4 quarter of 2012, its still pretty safe to say Nokia was bigger that time. Now lets look at the smartphone operating systems:
BIGGEST SMARTPHONE OPERATING SYSTEMS BY UNIT SALES IN Q4 2012
Rank . OS Platform . . . . Units . . . . Market share . Was Q3 2012 . . Manufacturers in Top 10
1 (1) . . Android . . . . . . . 147.3 M . . 68.5 % . . . . . ( 70.7 %) . . . . . Samsung, Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Sony, LG, HTC
2 (2) . . iOS . . . . . . . . . . 47.8 M . . 22.2 % . . . . . ( 15.7 %) . . . . . Apple
3 (3) . . Blackberry . . . . . . 6.9 M . . . 3.2 % . . . . . ( 4.3 %) . . . . . . RIM
4 (6) . . Windows Phone . . 5.8 M . . . 2.7 % . . . . . ( 1.9 %) . . . . . . Samsung, HTC, Nokia
5 (4) . . bada . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 M . . . 1.4 % . . . . . ( 3.0 %) . . . . . . Samsung
6 (5) . . Symbian . . . . . . . 2.2 M . . . 1.0 % . . . . . ( 2.0 %) . . . . . . Nokia
others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 M . . . 1.0 % . . . . . ( 2.3 %)
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . 217.2 M
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates February 13, 2012 from vendor data and other sources
This table may be freely distributed
The ecosystem battle is settled now, Android rules the new computing world selling on more than two out of every three smartphones sold. Apple is the clear number 2. These two have now taken 90% of the total smartphone market. The race among the others is truly for the scraps, with Blackberry now in the driver's seat having finally launched the BB10 OS platform and finding renewed market attraction in Q1. Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 is just about as big a flop as Windows Phone 7 was, over Windows Phone 6, over Windows Mobile... The Microsoft OS has fluctuated in the near-irrelevant scale where most other OS platforms go to die, from a low of 1.0% to a peak of 3.0% and currently holds 2.7%.
Year 2013 brings new vigor to the bottom end of this battle. Samsung is replacing bada with Tizen. With many other handset makers committed to Tizen including Huawei the third biggest smartphone maker, Tizen is the strongest of the newcomers. Ubuntu, Firefox and MeeGo-update Sailfish are all coming too this year to a pocket near you. If you want to read my preview of their chances, its here: 4 new operating systems for 2013. We'll monitor those as we move from Bloodbath Year Three, Digital Jamboree to start Bloodbath Year Four, Smartphones Galore.
SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS IN 2012
So next lets do the smartphone manufacturers by brand, in order of their sizes. So first up, its Sammy...
1ST - SAMSUNG - 215.0 million smartphones, 30.9% Market Share
Grew 221% from 2011, profitable - A+
Last 8 quarters market share: 13% - 16% - 21% - 23% - 31% - 33% - 33% - 30%
Samsung follows up a banner year 2011 with a blow-out year 2012, doing everything perfectly. Wherever Nokia dropped some candy, Samsung was there to snatch it up. Where rivals missed opportunities, Sammy pounced. Where Apple left openings, you found Galaxies. Galaxy Note, Galaxy Beam, Galaxy Camera, Samsung was the poster child for glamor and cool in mobile, yet managed to serve smartphones to the very low end of the price pyramid with its proprietary entry-level bada OS (the most successful smartphone OS launch in the history of this industry, yes selling more in its first two years than Apple's iPhone). As to how does Samsung currently split its smartphones across its three main OS platforms in Q4, its like this
SAMSUNG SMARTPHONES SOLD IN Q3 BY OPERATING SYSTEM
Samsung on Android . . . . . . . .94%
Samsung on bada . . . . . . . . . . 5%
Samsung on Windows Phone . . 1%
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates February 13, 2013 from vendor data and other sources
This table may be freely distributed
Samsung was the fifth biggest smartphone maker two years ago. It fought its way to second biggest last year - doing this profitably, and now jumps ahead of Apple, growing from year 2011 by 221% and finishing with smartphone sales of 215 million, and 58% bigger than number 2, Apple in smartphones. And Samsung did this all profitably, while preparing to launch its new OS, Tizen for 2013. What Samsung did in smartphones in the past two years, is similar to what Nokia did to Motorola in digital phones 15 years ago, or what Apple did to Sony in portable music players a decade ago. Ironically, Samsung was able to spank both of these competitive masters, Nokia and Apple, in the process. Behold the new home electronics master, if Samsung continues at this rate, it will be more than twice as big as its nearest rivals in the smartphone business by year-end. This is perfection in the execution of a smartphone strategy, not one tiniest stumble in the whole year. Samsung earns an A+
2ND - APPLE - 135.8 million smartphones, 19.5% market share
Grew 46% from 2011, profitable, B
Last 8 quarters market share 18% - 19% - 14% - 24% - 24% - 17% - 16% - 22%
Apple seems to have peaked a year ago, when it was hitting 24% market shares quarterly. Now it only manages to get to 22% level. This is still very powerful sales and market share performance, Apple is a clear number 2 in the smartphone races, and ludicrously profitable doing so - but its market gobbling growth path has stalled. Now Apple is in anemic growth stage, as it tries to find ever more elusive markets for its high-priced iPhone models. Its about time to release lower-cost iPhones to address the mass markets in the Emerging World where most smarpthone business will be made.
The latest iPhone model, the iPhone 5 was received with far less excitement and amazement as previous major releases, and the iPhone screen size and camera etc are falling behind the leaders to an alarming degree. Apple still has the highest loyalty in the industry but the gap to the competition is shrinking and Apple's unique sales points are losing some of their luster. Blackberry finally has its iPhone-clone built on its new BB10 OS, the Windows Phone OS under WP8 is 'competitive' or so claim Microsoft and Nokia; totally new and better OS platforms are launching in 2013 like Tizen and Sailfish (both evolutions of Nokia's abandoned MeeGo, the first OS that was rated better than Apple's iOS). Apple is squeezed now from all sides, with massive screen sizes like Huawei's 6 inch screens, and enormous cameras like Nokia's 41 megapixel Pureview (rumored to come to Lumia) etc. But Apple has the chance now to split its product range, offer a lower-cost 'Nano' iPhone and introduce a bigger screen monster iPhone in the $1,000 price stratosphere to own once again the top of the price pyramid (before Samsung does that too).
Apple had a very profitable year, it became the most valuable company on the planet etc. That is irrelevant to THIS contest. That is a battle for 2012. This is the race for the decade. He who owns the smartphone space in 2020, owns every consumer's identity, wallet, behavior, and value. Apple is fighting to win the wrong war right now (vs Samsung and Google who have their eyes on the big prize). So what matters in the Smartphone Bloodbath - is to have market share and doing it profitably. Apple is satisfying short-term profit greed at the cost of long-term market share gains. Wrong move. I grade Apple's monsterously profitable, but anemic market share growth year only as a B.
3RD - NOKIA - 35.0 million smartphones, 5.0% market share,
Shrunk 55% from 2011, loss-making, F-
Last 8 quarters market share 24% - 16% - 14% - 13% - 8% - 7% - 4% - 3%
Nokia is a total wreck. Nokia towered over its rivals only 24 months ago, twice as big as its nearest rivals (this is a bigger dominance of an industry than Toyota or GM or Volkswagen have ever had in cars, bigger than HP or Dell or IBM or Apple have ever had in personal computers). Nokia grew more in year 2010 than its rivals like Apple, RIM and Samsung, meaning Nokia was pulling away from the competition, the gap to the rivals was growing, not shrinking. Nokia sold 100 million smartphones in 2010 and did this with increasing profits and increasing profitability. This was done using the old Symbian OS which Nokia was about to replace with the highly admired and desired MeeGo OS. That all, new CEO Stephen Elop observed, and decided that when you are twice as big as your nearest rivals, highly profitable and growing faster than your rivals - that is a catastrophy so bad, you stand on a 'burning platform' and Nokia had to abandon this degree of 'failure' and instead select the least successful, most undersirable, bug-filled and risky platform, Windows for its smartphones - a move that had destroyed every other company that ever tried this moronic move in mobile.
Immediately after announcing this mad Microsoftian misadventure, Nokia was plunged into disasterous sales collapse globally. Nokia's massive market share of 29% in Q4 of 2010 fell to 12% in Q4 of 2011 - literally a world record collapse of a global market leader. Not only was this worse than any other handset industry failure like Palm, Motorola, Siemens and Blackberry, this is literally the worst collapse of a market leader of any industry, ever. Worse than Coca Cola disaster with New Coke. Worse than the brakes recalls with Toyota. Worse damage to the market share and revenues and profits of the company than even the oil spill by BP with Deepwater Horizon or the earlier oil tanker disaster around Exxon Valdez. This is the world's worst failure by corporate management of any Fortune 500 sized company that was a leader of its industry. Yes, Nokia's CEO established a world record in failure with his idiotic strategy. Then, not content to hold the world record for management failure, Elop decided to make matters worse, and mismanaged Nokia so badly in 2012, that he set a new record in failure for 2012! He plunged Nokia's mid-tier 12% market share in Q4 of 2012 down to what it is now as 3% for Q4 of 2012. He took a world record in failure, and decided it was not enough, he broke his own world record for failure. Stephen Elop will go down as the name of the most self-destructive CEO in the economic history of corporate governance.
Do I need to say more? Nokia made huge profits with smarpthones before this strategy. Now at one point in the year, Q3 of 2012, Nokia produced a 49% loss per smartphone sold. The transition from Symbian to Windows was promised by Elop in his February 11, 2011 strategy to be a 1-to-1 transition. Instead he has scared away 17 out of every 20 customers he tried to migrate to Windows. Of the remaining 3 who were duped into taking a Lumia branded Windows Phone smartphone, two out of three hate their phones so much, they will never take another Windows Phone again (says the latest Bernstein survey of consumer satisfaction). This mirrors earlier Yankee Group survey that among Lumia buyers, four out of ten rate the phone the worst they've ever seen. The Lumia series has seen the world's most expensive marketing push by Nokia (more than twice as much marketing dollars than the previous record) added to by the biggest marketing pushes by carriers like the biggest ever launch budget by AT&T. Microsoft threw literally billions more into the pot, including handing out free Xbox 360 videogaming consoles to some buyers of flagship Lumia products. Nokia gave out tens of thousands of free handsets to 'thought leaders' and then engaged with a dirty tricks squad together with Microsoft to go astroturf blogs and intimidate anyone who tried to write anything critical of the Lumia series. Nokia and Microsoft were caught paying volunteers to go write glowing review of Lumias etc.
All this was for nothing. The Lumia series has the lowest satisfaction of any Nokia smartphones ever (compared to MeeGo based N9 and N950 which launced at the same time, and have the highest ever). The Lumia series prices collapse within weeks of new models being launched, often sold in bargain-bins. The Lumia series is the first-ever Nokia smarpthone series whose resale value is essentially zero. So 17 out of 20 loyal Nokia customers has already been scared away, and of the remaining 3, two are eager to run away at the first chance they get. That means only 1 out of 20, yes 5% of Nokia's remaining customer base is loyal enough to buy another Nokia smartphone at some point in the future.
No wonder Elop is so much in panic, he is now trying to convince analysts that his featurephones running S40 basic phone OS, are somehow 'smartphones' simply because Elop says so. No, Stephen Elop, you do not get to change the rules of the game when you are losing. For those who are interested, I am running a multi-part analysis of the collapse of the Nokia smartphone juggernaut. I am analyzing the world record market collapse, one issue at a time, with one picture at a time. You may enjoy it. Here is the latest installment (with links to the rest of the series). Ok, enough with my daily Nokiarant, you wanted the split of Windows to Symbian, its pretty easy this past quarter, two thirds one, one third the other. For Q4:
NOKIA SMARTPHONES SOLD IN Q3 BY OPERATING SYSTEM
Nokia smartphones on Windows Phone . . . . 67%
Nokia smartphones on Symbian/Meego . . . . 33%
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates February 13, 2013 from vendor data and other sources
This table may be freely distributed
So what can we say about Nokia? When you go from selling 104 million smartphones profitably to selling 35 millon at massive losses, in only 2 years, the question is not, was this a disasterous performance, the question becomes, why is the CEO still in charge? Is the Board of Nokia in collusion? The Board of Nokia should also be investigated for breaches to its fiduciary duty. And yes, in the past year, Nokia fell from selling 77 million smartphones to 35 million now, literally collapsing sales by falling to less than half in just one year - a year when the industry grew by 41%. And Nokia's losses? During 2012 the losses in the smartphone unit only increased. I wish I could give Nokia a grade worse but all I can do is give them an F- for failing.
4TH - BLACKBERRY (ex-RIM) - 33.2 Million smartphone sales, market share 4.8%,
Shrunk 37% from 2011, profitable - D
Last 8 quarters market share 14% - 12% - 9% - 9% - 8% - 5% - 4% - 3%
So the company formerly known as RIM or Research In Motion, which recently renamed itself Blackberry, out of Canada, just after everyone thought it can't get worse than the company did in 2011, has seen its Annus Horribilis in 2012. What partly shaded RIM's disaster, was the train-wreck over in Finland that was Nokia at the same time. Blackberry's collapse in smartphones ranks only as the 6th worst crash in the history of mobile phone handsets. And while the fall did push RIM/Blackberry into loss-making, that is now over, the company is back to generating profits. Its peak market share of 22% is now down to 3%, but finally, after a long wait and delays to the launch, the new OS, BB10 is finally released with the first two smartphone models launched, to very warm reception and high demand. Blackberry's worst days are past. Can the Canadian smartphone maker now turn this around and find growth once again to the iconic smartphone pioneer, that remains to be seen in 2013. But at least the deep fall period is over. I grade RIM's year 2012 as a D, barely passing grade, due to the strong finish and return to profitability.
5TH - HUAWEI - 32.0 Million unit sales, market share of 5.3%,
Grew 60% from 2011 profitable, B
Last 8 quarters market share 3% - 3% - 3% - 4% - 4% - 4% - 5% - 5%
Get familiar with this name, the growth trajectory is very strong, as is their market grabbing strategy. Chinese Huawei is now a top 3 telecoms infrastructure vendor (competing with Ericsson and NokiaSiemens Networks) and a top 3 smartphone maker. They have been very successful in using synergies between the two divisions to help sell more smartphones, bundling some with their network deals, especially in emerging world markets. Huawei often also has its phones sold under carrier/operator brands, so the big analyst houses often undercount the total sales of handsets by Huawei. Yet all the major analyst houses agree that by Q4 Huawei had indeed become the third biggest smartphone maker (as I reported on this blog already early last year).
Essentially all of Huawei's smarpthone sales are currently on Android. They have been a Windows Phone partner but a very reluctant one, so that at times Microsoft has seemed unwilling to even acknowledge them. However Huawei is now releasing the cheapest Windows Phone smarpthones by any manufacturer, to launch into the Africa market. They may start to pose a real rival to Nokia within the miniscule Windows ecosystem in smartphones. The more interesting play is Tizen, Huawei is committed to launching its first Tizen smartphones this year 2013 and that platform is a real contender for 'third ecosystem' as it has major carrieres supporting it from NTT DoCoMo to Orange to Vodafone to Sprint to SK Telecom as well as many major handset manufacturers in the alliance led by Samsung and Intel. Tizen has the real potential to grow to become the major alternative to Google's Android, and if so, Huawei is particularly well poised to capitalize on that opportunity.
Of its 2012 business, Huawei has been squeezing ultra-slim profits out of its business, preferring market share gains to profits. Its handset unit is barely profitable, but being so, this is viable business and Huawei has shown very strong growth, jumping from 8th place in 2011 to 3rd place now. I grade Huawei as a B
6TH - SONY - 31.9 Million smartphone unis, 4.6% market share,
Grew 42% from 2011, profitable, B-
Last 8 quarters market share 5% - 5% - 6% - 6% - 5% - 5% - 5% - 4%
The smartphone maker formerly known as SonyEricsson, and a perennial loss-maker, was bought out by Sony and now has returned to healthy profits once again. The CEO says the company's future is in mobile and the company has set as a target to become a Top 3 smartphone maker. Foir a while in 2012, there was also a sales trajectory suggesting Sony might achieve that, but then the big Chinese makers zoomed past Sony and suddenly the Japanese electronics giant is facing whiplash wondering what happened. The market is rushing to low-end smarpthones and if Sony is serious about a Top 3 bid, it better learn soon from Samsung and Huawei, and rush a low-end Sony smarpthone series, not just the top-end Xperia models to compete with the iPhones. Sony does hold many strong assets it may be bringing to bear, starting with the Playstation brand that could sit very well with a highly desirable youth smartphone.
For its 2012 performance, as Sony grew, but only at the pace of the industry, its ok performance, not excellence. As Sony pulled out of loss-making and is once again profitable in smartphones, I grade Sony's year 2012 as a B-.
7TH - HTC - 31.5 million smartphone sales, market share 4.5%
Shrunk 30% from 2011, profitable, C-
Last 8 quarter market share - 10% - 11% - 10%- 6% - 5% - 6% - 5% - 3%
Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC was the fourth biggest smartphone manufacturer only two years ago, but it seemed to lose the plot. HTC was the biggest Android smarpthone maker (and the biggest Window Mobile smartphone maker) but soon upstarts on Android like Samsung and Huawei shot past HTC while the Windows Phone nightmare drained efforts on that dead platform. HTC was often featured with promising cutting edge technology like the 16mp camera and high speed '4G' technology, yet its user experience was regularly poor and loyalty very bad. Hence HTC's growth stalled and its market share started to dip heading into 2012. In the past year HTC unit sales fell by 30%. The company is still profitable but it seems every news item about HTC consists of warnings of ever shrinking profits. As the company is still viable (ie profitable) I can't grade it below a C, but because of the severe collapse of its market share, I give it the worst C I can, ie a C-Minus, so HTC earns C-
8TH - ZTE - 30.0 Million smartphone sales, market share 5.0%,
Grew 232% from 2011, loss-making, C
Last 8 quarters market share 2% - 3% - 3% - 4% - 4% - 4% - 4% - 5%
China's ZTE is trying to keep up with its cross-town rival Huawei and other hungry younger Chinese smartphone makers, especially Lenovo and Yulong/Coolpad. It failed to meet its sales targets for 2012 and found the smartphone wars costly pushing the handset unit into loss-making. ZTE is still a Top 10 sized smartphone maker, and missed passing Nokia for the full year 2012 sales by a hair (in the latest Quarterly data, ZTE is far ahead of Nokia already so for year 2013 it won't be even close). ZTE is now testing a new OS platform Firefox for 2013 and is hoping to recapture the profitable sales pattern it had before. Because they grew but went from profits to loss-making, I rate ZTE now a C for 2012.
9TH - LG - 27.6 Million smartphone sales, 4.0% market share
Grew 18% from 2011, profitable, C+
Last 8 quarters market share 5% - 5% - 5% - 5% - 4% - 4% - 4% - 4%
South Korean LG was deeply in the red in its smartphone misery once it too the perilous Windows detour, but recovered and now safely on Android, is on the mend. LG grew smartphone sales in 2012, but at a slower rate than the industry, only 18% for the year. LG is a contender in the mid-pack of the Top 10 and where others like Nokia, RIM and HTC are stumbling, with LG now solidly on Android and profitable growth, 2013 could be the year of strong resurgence. But its 2012 performance is ony passing grade. I give LG a C+
10TH - LENOVO - 24.9 Million smartphone sales, 3.6% market share
Grew (enormously from tiny base) and is profitable, A
Market share past 4 quarters 2% - 3% - 4% - 4%
Welcome to the big leagues Lenovo. The company that bought IBM's PC business and then looked at the iPhone, and decided to offer the Chinese market the LePhone, is now aiming for the world. They left Chinese domestic shores only in Q3 and now are selling in a handful of major markets - like Russia, India, Indonesia - and still in Q4, more than 90% of their total smartphone sales were inside China. But this is a hungry large tech company eager to take its place. Expect Lenovo to keep growing in 2013. We haven't seen any major stumbles by this brand so for its early going, its all good. I grade Lenovo's year 2012 as an A
MOTOROLA - crashes out of Top 10
Just a few words about MotoMoto... We kind of expected this, Google cannot afford to try to make Motorola competitive in the Android space, for fear of pissing off the other Android partners, many of which have ongoing alternative OS plans (HTC, Samsung, ZTE on Windows, Samsung also on bada) or who are planning new OS adventures (Samsung and Huawei on Tizen, ZTE on Firefox). So Google is cutting the staff at its Motorola unit, turning it ever more into a niche maker of specialist high-end 'reference' handsets and trying to reassure its Android partners that Motorola isn't - and won't become - a real threat to them. By letting Moto fall out of the Top 10, Google goes a long way on that mission. I still do expect Google to sell off the Moto handset unit at some point, to rid itself of this thorn.
There are obviously tons of third-tier makers from the hot bubbling just under the Top 10, like Yulong/Coolpad of China. There are regional players from India, Russia, Brazil etc (in Brazil there is a smartphone maker who owns the local rights to the name of iPhone, but they run Android, so if you ever wanted a genuine iPhone that uses Android, go get yours from Brazil..). Many newcomers are still rushing into the smartphones space, I monitor that as it evolves here on this blog from time to time. Probably the most eagerly awaited newcomer phone this year will be Jolla the ex-Nokia N9/MeeGo/Maemo team that might well produce the most award-winning new smartphone of the year for 2013, if the N9 and MeeGo in 2011 was any guide. The new evolution of MeeGo via Jolla is called Sailfish and the little Finnish start-up has already scored their first carrier deal (DNA of Finland) and even have a handset manufacturing partner joining the Sailfish ecosystem. Good luck to Jolla in 2013.
We also have several in this group who have been making noises in the past year that they want to 'come back' or grow into the top 10, like former Top 10 makers such as Sharp, Panasonic and Fujitsu of Japan - all wanting to do this via Android obviously. And other local specialists like South Korean Pantech, the third biggest handset maker of South Korea behind Samsung and LG. Even Motorola's 'other' unit, that was not sold to Google, Motorola Solutions, is returning to handsets releasing a very robust enterprise-oriented handset called the AME, running Android of course. So we might get some severe confusion in the market this year with two separate Motorola companies selling Android smartphones haha, a bit like early in Formula 1 last year we had two rival racing companies called Lotus. Ok, enough with the delays, lets move onto the ecosystem war of the century, update for year 2012. How is the war of the smartphone operating systems then, in 2012?
SMARTPHONE OS ANALYSIS 2012
The year 2012 made it very clear we are currently seeing a duopoly, Android and iOS, with the others truly fighting for the scraps. By Q4, Android and iPhone held over 90% of total global smartphone sales. The current crop is not up to putting up a fight, Blackberry lost its chances when it was unable to capitalize on its sudden consumer appeal three-four years ago in various Emerging World countries. Windows, well, Windows lost it gosh, years and years ago. Symbian didn't lose it, Symbian was killed by a corporate assassin called Elop, it was doing just fine in most of the world and would have fit Nokia's portfolio very well at the low end today, where Windows Phone cannot provide handsets (Symbian was selling sub-100 Euro handsets back in 2010, the cheapest Lumia, the 620, costs more than 200 Euros in unsubsidised form. The majority of the global smartphone market this year will be low-cost smartphones). bada was a kind of experiment and prep work by Samsung to set up Tizen coming out this year, so its understandable Samsung stopped pushing bada last year. And MeeGo was sunk by Nokia's mad-as-a-hatter CEO.
But we do have new OS platforms coming this year, Tizen, Firefox, Sailfish and Ubuntu, as well as the BB10 total redesign of Blackberry's OS. The race may still resume in attempting to find the 'third ecosystem' - just don't be deluded into thinking that might be Windows Phone haha, the biggest failure of Microsoft's launches, this side of the Kin youth phones... So lets do the smartphone OS platforms and their analysis, again by order of size, starting with the Big G of mobile.
1ST - GOOGLE ANDROID - 452 million smartphones, 65% market share
Grew 217%, Grade of A
Last 8 quarters market share 32% - 40% - 47% - 49% - 56% - 67% - 71% - 69%
Android is now the bestselling computer software OS across all computing platforms, outselling total Windows on all PCs, tablets and smartphones by already 50%. Its now only a matter of time when Android becomes the world's most used computing platform also by installed base. Quite an amazing accomplishment by an internet search company that was a latercomer to the search game, and still a decade ago wasn't even sure how to make money on the internet haha.. I already wrote my analysis in December about what this means to Google, Android, smartphones, the IT industry and the tech industry overall, that Google and Android have won the battle of the century. So what of the split? Here is how the handset manufacturers supporting Android are split by Android market share during Q4:
ANDROID SMARTPHONES SOLD IN Q4 BY MANUFACTURER
Samsung . . . . . . . . 42%
Huawei . . . . . . . . . . . 8%
ZTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8%
Sony . . . . . . . . . . . . 6%
LG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6%
Lenovo . . . . . . . . . . . 6%
HTC . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4%
Others . . . . . . . . . . 20%
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates February 13, 2013 from vendor data and other sources
This table may be freely distributed
So yeah, the Android camp is strongly ruled by Samsung and former giant HTC is nearly vanishing in this space. Huawei has taken second place (and imagine what happens if both of these shirft their allegiances strongly to Tizen in 2013-2014). But back to the performance review. Android powered two out of every 3 smartphones sold in 2012. Whereas the industry grew 41% from 2012, Android grew 217%. Android is more than 3 times bigger than its nearest rival (Apple's iOS) by new sales for the year 2012. You can't really do better than that. This is a solid A performance.
2ND - APPLE iOS - 136 Million smartphones, 20% market share
Grew 46%, C+
Last 8 quarters market share 18% - 19% - 14% - 24% - 24% - 17% - 16% - 22%
First, don't pay any attention to the quarterly fluctuations of the iPhone sales pattern, you'll just go mad. Its meaningless, pay only attention to the annual sales pattern. Apple's iPhone always sees a huge spike when the new model is released, so compared to the other rivals in smarpthones, Apple's quarterly jitteriness is not a problem, its part of their DNA. But on the annual level, Apple sales were essentially flat, they kept up with the Joneses only, the industry grew 41%, Apple grew 46%, they picked up 1 point of market share for the year. Thats not impressive. As for the OS wars the profitability is not a factor, even that cannot help mitigate the iOS grade here, I have to give Apple only a grade of C+. You are gradually losing the game, my friends... You better shape up soon!
3RD - RIM BLACKBERRY - 33 Million smartphones, 5% market share
Declined 37%, Grade D
Last 8 quarters market share 14% - 12% - 9% - 9% - 8% - 5% - 4% - 3%
Blackberry fell off the cliff but by some miracle, didn't die. The worst of the fall seems to be over, they still lost a lot of sales in 2012 but the early news is that the BB10 OS is hot and sales are up (we have to see to believe, but early signs are good). When you lose a third of your actual sales in one year, its truly bad, and here in the OS wars, even profitability is no savior. I rate BB as D.
4TH - NOKIA SYMBIAN - 19 Million smartphones, 3% market share
Collapsed 77% from 2011, Grade F
Last 8 quarters market share: 26% - 17% - 15% - 11% - 5% - 3% - 2% - 1%
Nokia's Symbian did not die a natural death. It was assassinated by its CEO. The crash was caused by the Elop Effect and once the CEO badmouths your product (repeating the Ratner Effect) and simultaneously makes your current products obsolete without offering anything to replace the sales (Osborne Effect) the resulting Elop Effect was inevitable. Yet that does not excuse it, the collapse of Symbian is obviously a world record, going from 29% to 1% in 24 months and Nokia's CFO, Timo Ihamuotila, has already said in January 2012, that Q4 was the last meaningful level of sales for Symbian, when they only sold 2.2 million smartphones. This is the last quarter of Nokia's Symbian being measurable in the smartphone races. For the full year, due to still the early 2012 sales, they finished in fourth place (ironically, ahead of Windows Phone) but there is no denying it, Symbian is kaput. I grade the dead OS with an F.
5TH - SAMSUNG BADA - 16 Million smartphones, market share of 2%
Grew 178% from 2012, Grade B
Last 8 quarters market share - 1% - 2% - 2% - 2% - 3% - 3% - 3% - 1%
Samsung's little bada project was a stealth success. They achieved the best-ever launch of a new smartphone OS, selling more even than the iPhone in the first 24 months, until the ramp-down started to prepare Samsung for Tizen. bada is now in maintenance mode and the peak performance is past. Still for the year, bada managed to outsell its far more visible and hugely marketed contemporary rival, Windows Phone by 200,000 units, 16.2M to 16.0M (and had Ballmer not idiotically announced that there will be no migration path from Windows Phone 7.5 to Windows Phone 8, which crashed Nokia Lumia sales in Q3, Windows would have eked ahead of bada this year, but that was not to be). For the little engine that could, for the brief time you were with us, I grade bada a solid B.
6TH - MICROSOFT WINDOWS PHONE - 16 Million smartphones, 2% market share
(No we don't play those pretend growth games here), Grade F
Last 8 Quarters market share: 2% - 1% - 1% - 1% - 2% - 3% - 2% - 3%
The world's second-bestselling smartphone OS only five years ago, which at its peak had over 20% global market share, Windows is the poster child for utterly ruining your brand in mobile. Microsoft bankrupted its launch partner Sendo, then screwed Motorola and LG and Nortel and HTC along the way from one Windows fiasco on smartphones to another. The Windows Mobile 'ecosystem' had an 8% market share four years ago at this time. By the time that was ruined, and no migration path to Windows Phone was promised, the Windows smarpthone share had plunged to 3% (both platforms combined) by the time Microsoft was bribing Nokia to join its so-called 'third ecosystem' (when Windows Phone was actually the 7th of 7).
That 3% was added to then Nokia's massive 34% annual market share in smartphones - so this new partnership was commanding 37% of global smartphone sales - of which even the most optimistic analysts were so dubious, they felt Nokia and Microsoft would land with something like 25% two years later (if all went well). Nobody in their right minds thought this partnership could deliver anywhere near its promise. And it didn't. Look at the trend line - Microsoft was literally a dead-man-walking in 2011 before Nokia joined, its partners fled this poisonous 'ecosystem' in droves: SonyEricsson, Motorola, Dell, LG all went never to come back. Samsung and HTC both cut their involvement in Windows and the 'new partners' ZTE and Huawei both delayed their phones as they saw no traction in this 'ecosystem' Meanwhile Windows market share fell to 1% through most of 2011... From 21% to 1% in five years.. Nobody wants the Windows system on their phones, not consumers, and definitely not carriers/operators.
Now we have seen Nokia CEO Stephen Elop massacre the Nokia Symbian smartphone loyal customer base business, converting 104 million annual sales in Symbian to a crummy 13 million Windows sales. Nokia sacrified 33% market share to give Microsoft today a full year market share now of .. 2%. This is EXACTLY what Microsoft had for Windows Phone before Nokia joined this 'partnership' After billions spent in promoting the highly undesirable Lumia line, Microsoft has achieved nothing, zero, zip, nada, rien, ingenting, niente. I wrote my analysis of who won and who lost the battle of the century (how Google won and how Microsoft lost the biggest tech battle of our lifetimes). And for those who refuse to face reality, I spelled out in deep detail why we are now past the point, that Windows cannot recover, it will never become the third ecosystem, no matter how much money Ballmer throws at this dog. Ok, enough with the rant. What is the split you ask? Here is how that goes, its all Nokia as we can imagine:
WINDOWS PHONE SMARTPHONES SOLD IN Q4 BY MANUFACTURER
Nokia . . . . . . . . . . . 77%
Samsung . . . . . . . . 11%
HTC . . . . . . . . . . . . 10%
Others . . . . . . . . . . . 2%
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimates February 13, 2013 from vendor data and other sources
This table may be freely distributed
The only reason Windows exists now in the smartphone 'wars' is because Ballmer is willing to throw good money after bad. We've seen this movie before, it will not last long. Windows Phone will be gone the way of the Kin and the Zune. There is zero traction to this dead platform and only Nokia is even willing to do any of the heavy lifting to pretend there is sales - and that well is now nearly dry. When Nokia started on this journey to pump up Windows, Nokia had the sales of 29 million new smartphones per quarter. That is now down to 6.6 million per quarter. There is no more blood to be squeezed out of this company. So Windows? Failed utterly. I grade them an F.
So thats the end of the most competitive global market ever, that of smartphones, where more global Fortune 500 sized rivals compete against each other worldwide than in any other industry ever before, cars, banks, airlines, computers, home electronics, petroleum etc. The smartphone Bloodbath was in its Year Three, Digital Jamboree and the carnage just continues and ever more rivals are rushing in, even as some major brands pull out finding this race too rough (in 2012 we lost Dell and HP among global giants in smartphones, but HP now is hinting it might return). So we proceed to Smartphone Bloodbath Year Four Smartphones Galore. More analysis and numbers when Q1 data is in, and if we have interesting news to report along the way, I'll be posting my updates as well on this blog. If you want to stay current on this stuff, you may want to follow me on Twitter, I am of course @tomiahonen. And we'll next do the winners in the Guess Windows Phone market share in Q4, our Twittercontest from 2011.
PS - Allow me one plug - for those who need more info and statistics about the handset industry, the regional splits, the price pyramid, the features of the installed base, the market shares by continent, etc, please see the TomiAhonen Phone Book 2012, an ebook formated so you can have the 100 charts and tables all in your pocket, installed onto your smartphone, or read on your Kindle or tablet PC and always available. At only 9.99 Euros, the 170 page statistical volume is the best value in handset market information you can find. See TomiAhonen Phone Book 2012 for more.
Hi Tomi,
Seems now Nokia list S40 as smartphone as well.
is that also included in the data?
Posted by: RC | February 13, 2013 at 11:03 PM
A small correction: there was no Windows Phone 6. It was "Windows Mobile" up until 6.5, then it became Windows Phone 7.
Posted by: glonq | February 13, 2013 at 11:39 PM
Q: Does this data include TECNO & all the cheap MediaTek-powered Android phones sold in the developing markets?
Posted by: Stephen | February 14, 2013 at 03:18 AM
RC - no, of course not, S40 is not a smartphone, no matter how much Elop cries and demands they be counted
glonq - thanks
Stephen - Stephen, of course, these are global numbers all Mediatek Android based smartphones are included.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | February 14, 2013 at 03:39 AM
Tomi,
I was wondering if you know Micromax, I heard they have a successful android lineup in India
Posted by: cycnus | February 14, 2013 at 04:44 AM
Hi cygnus
Yes, Micromax is a big handset player in India but the India smartphone market is still in its early stages so without vast international sales, they won't register in the Top 20 yet.. but am monitoring them, they can become big as India smartphone sales pick up, to do something similar to what Lenovo did almost exclusively inside China...
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | February 14, 2013 at 04:49 AM
Very informative.
Scary to see how badly Windows is doing versus how Microsoft and Nokia pretend it's doing in public. Dirty tricks, smoke and mirrors, lies, damned lies, and statistics - nothing is going to save Windows Phone.
Posted by: Interested to know | February 14, 2013 at 05:17 AM
@Tomi: what makes an OS/phone 'smart' in mobile domain?
I also do not like the tricks NOkia is trying to make with S40 - actually part of it, Full-Touch Ashas - to be counted as 'smartphone like' but in fact they
- can be customized
- apps are available
- email, internet available
- social networks can be reached
- etc.
So, at the end of the day, they could be categorized smart - or not?
Why if latter one?
Posted by: zlutor | February 14, 2013 at 08:01 AM
@zlutor
Series 40 can run Java Apps for years (like Symbian can/could- bridging the developer ecosystems of Series40 and Symbian to some extend)- never anybody wasted a thought on Series 40 Phones being smartphones. The only new thing on Asha full touch compared to Touch&Type Series 40 is "full touch". btw: Samsungs Star Series phones are "full touch" but not considered smartphones.
Posted by: pingpong | February 14, 2013 at 10:45 AM
@pingpong: I know they are j2me capable - but what makes a phone 'smart' then if not all(!) the things I mentioned above? Seriously! Running java app is just one thing - even Nokia 110 is capable of doing it...
We all use the term 'smartphone' but do we know what does it really mean?
Posted by: zlutor | February 14, 2013 at 12:22 PM
@glonq
When Microsoft launched Windows Phone 7, they renamed Windows Mobile 6.5 to Windows Phone 6.5.
@zlutor
Actually, the S40 Internet capabilities are not so smart. The phone is a dumb terminal which displays web pages that were preprocessed and simplified on Nokia servers.
There has been some controversy around the fact that Nokia acted as man-in-the-middle even for SSL(https) connections, as all passwords, banking details etc. were passing through their server farm in clear text. After being called out in public for it, they stopped decrypting user traffic (but still route it through their servers).
Posted by: chithanh | February 14, 2013 at 01:27 PM
Tomi,
There is one fact you're wrong about ; Elop is not in panic, why would he ?
He still earns between 5M and 10M a year despite poor results, and no-one is about to fire him.
His salary is only the visible part of the iceberg as he can use it for some trading game :
Soon, there will be the MWC and some teasing (EOS for example) to excite traders, then there will be the annual general meeting, where Nokia is about to issue shares, which will make its value dive again - that's exactly what happened to Ericsson before becoming SE - then again some teasing... he might triple his salary, like last year.
Posted by: vladkr | February 14, 2013 at 01:45 PM
What makes a smartphone, good question, I think one feature that Asha series are missing is GPS and good performance. Possibly it's also missing other sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope, compass)
Posted by: daz | February 14, 2013 at 02:42 PM
The argument that only smartphone market share is important does not fly.
If its OS is also powering other devices, and if the apps running will be able to work on all devices, then that OS is much more important than the smartphone figures suggest. It also means that the ranking of the OS'es doesn't mean much. The fate of the OS is not decided in just the smartphone market.
And finally, both Android and iOS are used as tablet OS'es. And all the other wish they had a tablet to power. So there is no disadvantage for any of the OS'es not to have the tablet category taken into account.
Posted by: Sander van der Wal | February 14, 2013 at 09:53 PM
crApple's success is mostly undeserved, facilitated mostly by the biased US mainstream tech media practicing "economic jingoism" and acting like a mindless echo chamber regurgitating the same reality distortion field marketing claptrap and then further led on by bandwagoneering, carpetbagging stock market analysts which have it in their financial interest to "pump&dump" crApple stock. Well, the lies & propaganda would soon catch up to them:
http://readwrite.com/2013/02/11/whos-manipulating-apple-stock-with-this-iwatch-story
http://www.businessinsider.com/wsj-apple-is-quietly-sending-the-press-more-reports-2013-2
Posted by: Tleilaxu Mentat | February 15, 2013 at 11:10 AM
I guess one criterion to classify phones by would be true multitasking. I don't mean being able to play music in the background, but actually being able to run arbitrary multiple apps at the same time and switch between them. Nokia S40 is clearly not able to do this, and it's a major limitation.
Posted by: Mikko | February 15, 2013 at 11:18 AM
Certain websites seem eager to pass on Apple propaganda while suspending their usual powers of journalistic scrutiny which seem reserved only for Apple's rivals (not including Google).
Here, we certainly have another classic Apple stock-manipulation rumor, desperately trying to decelerate the continuing decline in Apple stock which has already wiped hundreds of billions of dollars off the value of the company.
Hence also the desperate cries of "we're not doomed" from Apple's propaganda machine, now stuck in a pathological overdrive:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-12/apple-said-to-have-team-developing-wristwatch-computer.html
Posted by: Tleilaxu Mentat | February 15, 2013 at 11:19 AM
@Miko
The real issue is not what define smartphoneOS, but Elop trying to manipulate the public. Elop were trying to make Lumia seems very successful.
Posted by: cycnus | February 15, 2013 at 12:48 PM
@Miko
"I guess one criterion to classify phones by would be true multitasking."
Actually, I do not think there is much point in trying to come up with a real definition.
If you look at word-use, a Smartphone is simply a phone the can do what the original iPhone 1 or 2 could do. I would pick iPhone 2 as a cut-off. But that is personal taste.
Obviously, the expectations increase with time. It questionable whether the iPhone 1 would still be considered "powerful".
Posted by: Winter | February 15, 2013 at 02:29 PM
The first iPhone couldn't even install apps. It was even more useless than a featurephone of the same time.
I personally classify a smartphone as a device that is capable of installing and running applications that have full access to the device's native user interface.
This would rule out everything using J2ME as it programming platform but conveniently include all systems that are generally considered 'smart' today.
So, no iPhone1, clearly, but also no S40.
Posted by: Tester | February 15, 2013 at 04:35 PM