Wow, when Nokia was riding high with an unprecedented 40 per cent mobile phone market share in January last year it seemed the Finnish giant was unstoppable. Well, perhaps someone just managed to find the brake pedal...
For Q4 period the company has reported profits fell 69 per cent to 576m euros compared to the year ago period. Overall sales dropped off 19 per cent to 12.7bn euros and market share fell more than eight per cent to 37 per cent - though it remains considerably ahead of second place rival Samsung on approximately 20 per cent.
Now Nokia naturally remains in pretty good shape despite this but the results aren't out of the blue. Not one, but two profit warnings had been issued since mid November and the Q3 Results were also pretty depressing. Perhaps more pertinently, aside from the superlative E71 (above) there has been a distinct lack of innovation in its handsets over the last 18 months and the continued success of Apple and RIM - plus a likely strong comeback from Palm - look set to only damage it further.
That said, with its immense resources it will take a lot more than a bad year or even two or three bad years to see Nokia knocked from its lofty position at the head of the mobile phone table.
No comments:
Post a Comment