BREAKING NEWS: Coolpad enters Top 10 biggest smartphone brands, replaces Blackberry which tumbles out of Top 10.
CORRECTED on 18 May: The final numbers are now out. Blackberry had a nasty quarter, but HTC had an even worse one, so much so, that it fell from significantly stronger sales than Blackberry in Q4 of 2012, to yes, less than Blackberry now in Q1, so it wasn't Blackberry that was tossed out of Top 10, it was HTC. Here are the Q1 numbers.
I warned this was about to happen. China's Coolpad brand, made by China Wireless (also known as Yulong) has just reported on its 2012 total sales (20M units) and its growth trajectory for 2013 (expects 30M total sales this year). My preliminary number for Coolpad Q1 sales is 6.8 million, far above both Nokia and Blackberry sales this quarter (6.1 and 6.0 million), so even if Coolpad is way off, it will be safely bigger than those two former smarpthone giants.
So Coolpad (China Wireless/Yulong) enters the global Top 10 biggest smartphone brands, becoming the fourth Chinese brand in the Top 10 (behind Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo). And sadly for the only Canadian handset maker, iconic Blackberry (formerly RIM) drops out of the Top 10. Blackberry was the world's second largest smartphone maker as recently as 2010.
Congratulations Coolpad! Its very likely their ranking is not 10th, they likely are at least 9th largest already (also bigger than Nokia which now falls to 10th. Nokia was world's largest smartphone maker as recently as this same quarter, Q1 just two years ago, 2011).
Meanwhile, I do expect Blackberry to re-enter the global smartphone Top 10 biggest manufacturers in Q2 of this year, displacing Nokia, based both on current Nokia smartphone sales trajectory and market reactions to Windows Phone 8 (meek) vs Blackberry's customer enthusiasm to BB10 and in particular the QWERTY-based Q10 smartphone they just started selling. So while Coolpad is pretty safe to stay in the Top 10, I do think Nokia will fall out in Q2 and Blackberry climbs back in. But for that, we have to see some more numbers and wait a couple more months...
All info in this blog free to share.
@Kevin: "We can expect around 1million target for Nokia in Q3, cannot we" - NOkia sold 400k(!) Lumias in the US&Canada together in Q1.
Jumping to 1mio would be a miracle - according to my opinion...
Posted by: zlutor | April 25, 2013 at 12:47 PM
@zlutor Yes, 400K for Q1, that's right. But with Verizon, I guess there would be another 300k added to Nokia's basket. And, considering natural growing of Lumia on other carriers, an extra 200k increase won't be mad, would it?
Posted by: Kevin | April 25, 2013 at 01:44 PM
Nokia is finished/done/toast, Kevin.
There is no recovery.
Posted by: Juan | April 25, 2013 at 02:30 PM
@Kevin: I do not know whether it is mad or not. On the other hand 1mio is definitely better than 400k but still nothing in the big picture... :-(
See http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/24/sprint-galaxy-s-4-in-store-delay/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget
What a difference!
Posted by: zlutor | April 25, 2013 at 02:45 PM
@Zlutor
"On the other hand 1mio is definitely better than 400k but still nothing in the big picture... :-("
1M ~ 16 hours of Android activations
Posted by: Winter | April 25, 2013 at 02:57 PM
@Winter: "1M ~ 16 hours of Android activations" = "but still nothing in the big picture"
On the other hand it is 1/6 of a Quarter... :-)
Sad to see those numbers in context of Nokia - but it seems we have to get used to it for a while... :-(
Posted by: zlutor | April 25, 2013 at 03:38 PM
I'd say it's still to early to declare doom on Blackberry. Don't forget they just started their new platform so it has inevitably caused people to hold off until the new devices are available.
If they can't improve over the next two quarters, yes, then they'll be in trouble.
As for Nokia, yeah, yet another deal. Wanna bet it'll fizzle like all the others before it? They've been trying this game ever since they released the first Lumias, the result is still close to zero.
Posted by: Tester | April 25, 2013 at 04:16 PM
And who is Coolpad / Yulong? Why them instead of some other company in China?
http://www.qualcomm.com/media/releases/2006/01/26/qualcomm-and-yulong-subsidiary-china-wireless-technologies-sign-3g
It turns out Yulong Computer Technology Co., Ltd. signed a patent licensing agreement for at least all of Qualcomm's 3G CDMA IP back in 2006. That made sense for them since they still make stuff. That deal was apparently not so great for Nokia who tried to fight Qualcomm only to finally pay something on the order of $2.3 billion USD in a one-time payment and not even get an ability to sell much on Verizon, until possibly now that Nokia has been forced to switch to using Qualcomm chips exclusively.
IP stuff matters as Qualcomm's success and Nokia's collapse have shown. It especially matters when one is dealing with the Chinese where one needs something to bargain with.
Posted by: John Phamlore | April 25, 2013 at 06:19 PM
The title got an typo it should be Q1 2013 not Q1 2012.
Posted by: Steve | April 25, 2013 at 07:03 PM
Lets see, all of the top 10, with the exception of Apple, rely on someone else's OS (for 95%-100%) of the smartphones they sell.
Everyone else that tried to stick to their own OSes (after the iPhone came about) died or dropped out and are gone from the 1op 10 list. Palm-WEB/OS-HP = Gone. DoCoMo OEMs (on Symbian fork) = Gone. Blackberry-BB1-BB10 = gone. Etc.
Clearly, unless you are Apple, the only way to stay on the top 10 list is to use a third party American OS (Android or Windows Phone).
Oh, but if only Nokia had stayed the course and used/evolved their own OSes, like Palm, like Blackberry, they'd be....
Only in this alternate reality :)
Posted by: B a r o n 95 | April 25, 2013 at 09:45 PM
@Baron95
"Clearly, unless you are Apple, the only way to stay on the top 10 list is to use a third party American OS (Android or Windows Phone)."
Android is half Finnish.
Posted by: Winter | April 26, 2013 at 08:21 AM
Tomi's quote in Twitter:
"Apple Q1 2013 results: iPhone sales down 22% from Q4 to 37.4M units (is normal seasonal iPhone sales pattern), market share down to 18%"
The last five years, the growth figures Q1-Q4:
2009: -37%
2010: +19%
2011: +15%
2012: +117%
2013: -22%
"Normal seasonal sales pattern"? I guess we need a definition for the word "normal". Just like for "within weeks". Nokia was supposed to be sold "within weeks", as said by Tomi in July 2012, that's 40 weeks ago.
Posted by: CN | April 26, 2013 at 08:27 AM
@john palmore
Nokia use qualcom because elop+balmer wp only use qualcom.
Posted by: cycnus | April 26, 2013 at 08:39 AM
@Winter: "Android is half Finnish." - ???
Posted by: zlutor | April 26, 2013 at 09:16 AM
@zlutor
The kernel in Android (= half the OS) is Linux. Linux originated in Finland and it's head maintainer is a Fin.
Posted by: Winter | April 26, 2013 at 09:44 AM
@Winter: OK, I see! :-)
I know what Linux is...
Posted by: zlutor | April 26, 2013 at 09:57 AM
@cycnus
Here's the connection between Nokia and Blackberry
http://www.zdnet.com/how-tis-move-out-of-smartphones-into-servers-highlights-chip-issues-7000007439/
"But MeeGo development handsets had been entirely based on OMAP chips, so when TI cancelled development of its OMAP chip with an integrated baseband modem in late 2008, that was pretty much the death knell for the project -- especially as Nokia worked with Intel to develop MeeGo, which meant no CDMA MeeGo handsets for Sprint or Verizon and no LTE MeeGo handsets for any market at all."
As the above commentary notes, Blackberry had similar problems having to switch hardware platforms due to TI's dropping out of the business.
And the author of the above doesn't even note the common thread with how TI refusing to compete with Intel led to Sun Microsystems being unable to timely bring out their latest Sparc servers.
Posted by: John Phamlore | April 26, 2013 at 10:31 AM
@John Phamiore
The lesson? Never ever have a single supplier for a critical component.
Posted by: Winter | April 26, 2013 at 10:32 AM
@Baron: >> Clearly, unless you are Apple, the only way to stay on the top 10 list is to use a third party American OS (Android or Windows Phone).
LOL! This is so stupid I couldn't stop laughing, I almost spilled my coffee over the keyboard.
1st.) You do not want to compare the success of Android to the 'success' of WP, do you? One is the dominating smartphone OS, the other OS only is a niche (P)OS.
2nd.) The companies which failed did not fail because they wrote their own OS. They failed because the OS they wrote failed and they were totally dependent on this OS.
This is exactly what currently happens to Nokia, too: Nokia depends on the success of WP. Since WP is a failure, Nokia nose-dives into irrelevancy, too.
If Nokia had a smart CEO instead of the arsonist Elop, they would have multiple OSes, too (at least Symbian, Meego, Meltemi and WP).
So when WP fails, Nokia would have a plan B. They do not, so they fail.
And this is exactly what the failed companies had in common: No plan B.
Posted by: Huber | April 26, 2013 at 10:40 AM
@John Phamlore, I guess meego kernel could never support other chip makers, because its such a peculiar unused in mobile kernel???
Posted by: N9 | April 26, 2013 at 11:05 AM