Nokia HMD Comeback? First Year Finishes with 8.7 Million Smartphones Shipped and 1.0% Market Share by Year-End (Updated)

We have the first published report of Nokia HMD smartphone global sales, via Nokiamob website and the stats are reported by Counterpoint. They find Nokia HMD smartphones to have 1.0% market share at 4.15M units for Q4, worldwide.


UPDATE 14 FEB 2018 - Counterpoint the analyst has revised their Nokia HMD number from 4.15M to 4.4M units as per this story at Gadgets 360. I have updated the math based on the 4.4M story. The original article from Feb 3, had 4.15M as the Nokia number.


That gives us a good number to get the full year sales of the first year come-back for Nokia brand into smartphones. This is what we have, via IDC and Counterpoint numbers that have been published:

Nokia HMD Smartphone Sales By Quarter in Year 2017
Q1 . . . 0.1 million
Q2 . . . 1.4 million
Q3 . . . 2.8 million
Q4 . . . 4.4 million
Total . . 8.7 million smartphones shipped in 2017

Sources: Published numbers via IDC and Counterpoint, analysis by TomiAhonen Consulting 14 Feb 2018
This table may be freely shared

I want to thank two readers. My Twitter follower Stipe Hrzic aka @stipe1906 who tweeted about the story. And then also thanks to blog reader 'Sonan', who observed that Sony just sold 4.0 million smartphones and speculated, Nokia HMD may have already passed Sony for global smartphone sales. Thanks Sonan. It certainly seems like that has already happened in Q4.

Nokia HMD is at 1.0% market share globally. The level to return to Top 10 is roughly twice that, from about 2 percent market share. Nokia HMD has been growing at about 1.5 million units more sales per quarter for two quarters (with slight growth) and was adding more countries and networks still in Q4 of last year. We should see some more growth organically just with more distribution added. Then the heavier lifting will start. Some of the fans of Nokias had gotten their first phones back, and that excitement will subside. The sales reverts to more traditional sales and marketing issues. Need to invest in more marketing and especially get carriers/operators to support the Nokia HMD comeback. We may well see a slowing down of the growth rate now, after the first year of excitement. But for Nokia HMD to already pass Sony, that must be good news.

Now when will they pass 10 million units shipped? The current run rate is 1.5 million phones per month (4.4 million per quarter) and by that rate, sometime just about now, first week of February Nokia HMD will probably have passed their 10 millionth smartphone shipped, in their come-back. If so, we could expect Nokia HMD to celebrate that milestone at say Barcelona in a few weeks.

This was one analyst giving a Nokia HMD number. We may get others. Let's see how that goes. But there IS a serious come-back going on. Already now. Nokia is at 1% of global smartphone market and growing. I told you last year that 1% by the end of the year was well within their cards. And if so, then 2% by the end of this year, 2018, would be also plausible. And THAT would be on the brink of returning to the Top 10. We may see Nokia back as a brand in the big smartphone wars in about a year from now, if these early growth trends continue. That would be amazing!


UPDATE 14 FEB 2018 - So the same article with the updated Counterpoint number, gave also other details. They count Nokia current global market share at 1.0% and the rank of Nokia brand among Top 10 smartphones as number 11. Meanwhile another analyst, Trendforce, has counted 11.5 Million as the final Nokia HMD smartphone number for year 2017 (significantly more than my count of 8.7M), and they also have Nokia currently at 1.0% market share, but Trendforce has given their projection that they expect Nokia to be at about 20 million smartphones sold this year 2018. Good signs... 


I will still wait, in case any other analysts report any Nokia numbers. When we have all data in, I'll do a forecast for this year. 

Comments

[Jaakko]

@Tomi
HMD said in Barcelona THEMSELVES that they have shipped 70 million Nokia-branded phones last year. So there is a hard number to use for adjusting the analyst estimates.

[Abdul Muis]

Blackberry only sold 850000 phone last year, and they were proud of it

[Abdul Muis]

https://www.cnet.com/news/nokia-phones-ceo-president-florian-seiche-interview-mwc-2018/

Nokia phones won't be coming to the US this year, Florian Seiche, HMD's CEO and president said in an interview after the event.

It'll have to be, because HMD has some lofty goals for Nokia phones. "Our ambition is to become again one of the leading players, which means, top five or better in the next three to five years," said Seiche.

HMD claims to be in the top five phone makers in 15 markets already

Seiche doesn't seem phased, though. He explained with a breezy cheerfulness that HMD will just focus on reinforcing its footprint in existing markets where it's enjoyed success this year -- regions including Europe, India, Indonesia and Russia -- by offering a much wider range of phones.

[Jim Glue]

I'm encouraged that Nokia is putting out some quality, throwback, feature phones. My mom doesn't need or want a smarphone, but she still needs a quality phone. Unfortunately the Nokias aren't available on her carrier.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi gang

numbers are up (final 2017 and Q4)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Jaakko

Thanks! I saw that too. But it is not the number I was hoping to hear. 70 million is total phones so it includes the dumbphones which sold more than 60 million of the 70 million. I had hoped HMD would 'brag' about having passed 10 million smartphones shipped so far, which would be a strong sign to confirm the numbers we're estimating. That they didn't commit to the 10M smartphone number, tells me that we may be too optimistic, and HMD hasn't yet passed 10M cumulative sales. Then the Q4 sales could be a bit under 4.4M like say 4.1M or 3.7M or something like that... of course it is possible HMD did pass 10M but just don't want to mention the number, for whatever reason...

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Timo]

Is Nokia/HMD already doing phones as they always did, in Nokia-owned and Nokia-designed factories of extremely high tech and quality?

[Healthifyme]

Best phone ever