Comments on: Nokia sales and profits dip in 2nd quarter

The handset maker takes a hit and continues its belt-tightening, but its CEO says that the industrywide slump may be hitting bottom.

[Mark_Anderson]

Not bad results considering - the 66% decrease is horrible but represents an improvement on the first quarter's 90% decrease plus handset share - including smartphones - has increased.

Not sure what impact the N97 would have had as the US market is irrelevant to Nokia and it wasn't released on contract in Europe and Asia until early July which is Q3.

[nicceg]

This is the first good neutral report of the Nokia result that I have read. Most sites seem to report that Nokia dropped due to intense competition with Apple and RIM which isn't true. The market share in the smart phone business increased. Compared to Sony-Ericsson Nokia is doing well. I do believe that S-E has taken a hard hit by Apple & RIM.

N97 is very much criticised in the US for having resistive touch screen technology. My understanding is that this is necessary if you are going to be successful in Asia. In a few months we see how B97 goes in comparison with IPhone. My tip is Nokia wins big.

[nicceg]

This is the first good neutral report of the Nokia result that I have read. Most sites seem to report that Nokia dropped due to intense competition with Apple and RIM which isn't true. The market share in the smart phone business increased. Compared to Sony-Ericsson Nokia is doing well. I do believe that S-E has taken a hard hit by Apple & RIM.

N97 is very much criticised in the US for having resistive touch screen technology. My understanding is that this is necessary if you are going to be successful in Asia. In a few months we see how B97 goes in comparison with IPhone. My tip is Nokia wins big.

[codynews]

I know Nokia doesn't give a crap about the US but I'm suprised they are still as big as they are. I'm a phone geek and obviously every one of my friends have cell phones. I don't know anyone -- friends or family -- that has a Nokia. And the phones my friends/family have scale from my mom's old ghetto non-color phone up to Pre's, BB's, and iphones.

Who's buying these Nokia piles and why? Is their market share outside the US *that* large?

And Niceeg... I haven't even heard much of anything about the N97. And I don't even know what "resistive" touch screen would be... what does the iphone have? The g1? Something different? And why would a resistive touch screen be shunned in the US and loved in Asia? It seems that the wants of some normal dude in the US wouldn't be that far off from someone in Asia when it came to touching their phone?

[Mark_Anderson]

@cody

Who's buying them? Everyone outside the US where Nokia have little if any subsidised carrier presence.

For example, the 5800 comprehensively outsells the iPhone in every market it competes against it other than the US. As for the N97, I don't rate it myslef but it will sell about 10 milion over its lifecycle.

[codynews]

You're guess that it will sell 10 million units. Well the iphone has sold, what, 20 million units? So if the rest of the world is so gaga over Nokia vs the iphone, they don't seem to be doing much about it.

But back to my question, what about these Nokias is so attractive to the 'rest of the world' ? They seem like total piles to me.

[Mark_Anderson]

@cody

Half those sales were in the US where, as mentioned, Nokia don't have a market. Also we're on the third generation of the iPhone so if you want some honest comparisons I suggest you split sales down between iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS.

The N97 is just one out of a range of smartphones Nokia sell - in Q2 they shifted 16.9 million of them again with no presence in the US market. Bluntly, outside the US the iPhone is just one of a number of smartphones and although it has its share it's not dominant by any means.

As for why people like Nokias, it's probably that you can do pretty much anything with them. Sure the UI is a bit clunky but they're versatile, solid and reliable.

[viilea]

@cody

Nokia sells 38% of all the mobile devices in the world and 41% of all the smart phones! Actually, Nokia is also the biggest camera seller in the world.. These are amazing numbers in such a tough market. Nokia sells only 3% of its phones to US.

It is partly due to American ignorance that Nokia is not well known in the US. A good example was that when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talked about leading smart phone manufacturers he did not even mention Nokia as one! It would be almost the same thing as not to mention Microsoft when talking about leading companies making operating systems. On the other hand, I think Nokia should advertise more in US.

US market has not been very interesting for Nokia because USA has been 5-10 years behind rest of the western world in terms of cell phone culture. Americans were still using pagers when school kids were using Nokia smart phones in Europe and in Asia. Now, US has been catching up and most of the American thing they have now "invented" smart phones. Although for example iPhone is still lacking features which Nokia has had over 5 years.

Another fact is that there is no free cell phone market in US. It is dominated by a few big operators who more or less dictate what phones you can buy. Nokia is best in markets where people can openly see what are the true costs for a phone. In US, phones are hardly ever sold with their true price. Nokia does not to play the game with operator's rules, which leads to lower operating margins.

People buy Nokia phones because they typically offer the best combination of price, features and quality. The iPhone hype in US seems more or less ridiculous when looking it outside USA. It has nice UI, but is it all you need from a phone? And if that is important, maybe Nokia can make a few nice icons too with its 9 billion dollar cash?

[zarathustra911]

I own and used the N97 and it is by far the biggest turd from both Nokia and all the flagship products of all the other handset makers.

Over the years I had an E62, E61i, E71, N800, N810 and now an N97. I have a BB Bold and an iPhone. I WANT to like the N97. The hardware is solid and the specs are great (except for the comparatively pokey processor). I can even live with the resistive screen.

Where it totally falls flat is the user experience and system software.

There are 4 different software based keyboards that I have seen on it, none of them particularly good. The dialer does not show you the alphanumeric equivalents on them, so if you are traveling and you try to dial 1800-CITI-ATM, you stand there, guessing.

The phone randomly restarts and loses connection. Freezes happen almost every third time I unlock the phone.

Sometimes you scroll by using the scrollbar on the side of the screen, sometimes you have to flick the page á la iPhone. Sometimes you single click to select an item, sometimes you have to double click.

The Ovi application store is an embarrassment both in selection and design.

Some UI elements harken back to S60 3rd edition, while some are me-too iPhone like.

On paper this phone should wipe the floor with the iPhone. But it is not even close.

The phone would be 100% improved by shoehorning Android into it. Heck, even WInMo 6.5 would be an improvement. I cannot believe that this phone was released in it's present state.

I will hold on to it, hoping a few firmware updates bring it up to the usability of the E71.

[mvl_groups_user]

My wife (moved to US from Asia) got an N97 - she will buy no phone other than Nokia. Nokia has developed a reputation over the years for solidly built phones, very very few Nokias physically break or wear out.

Nokia continues its very strange interface (to me, a Startac-raised Motorola lover) but that is something that Nokia users have gotten used to. While I can't figure out how to use the N97, my wife learned it easily and loves it.

The problem with the US market started because Nokia didn't license the quality Qualcomm CDMA chipsets (building their own unreliable ones), and lost hand-over-foot to Motorola when CDMA ruled the market in the early 2000's. (Verizon at the high end, Sprint at the low end). Rather than have the poor CMDA quality ruin its brand, it abandoned CDMA and much of the US market.

Now Nokia has a different issue. In much of the world, you buy a Nokia, and your choice of cellco is secondary. Nokia has been able to maintain its quality brand by refusing to cripple its phones. In the US, the cellco's rule the industry and the phones are an afterthought. The cellcos mandate crippling of phones as many of Nokia's features would cut into huge cellco revenue streams (eg: music, navigation). To this day Nokia has never crippled their Nseries line.

It's in interesting dilemma - the "dumb pipe" is not what US cellcos want to be. US cellcos want to monetize the value of the cellphone services, and so does Nokia. So in a way, Nokia directly competes with US cellco companies. Nokia has regained its US aspirations, for examlpe they crippled their 5800 and E71 to test the US waters. Both Nokia and the US cellcos are deep-pocketed, we'll see who ends up winning the US services war.