Nokia Market Share Update

[Ben]

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/mobile/0,39020360,39276180,00.htm

It's old news, but news all the same, gleamed from an article about Nokia's new handsets (relevant ones have already been covered here).

Nokia's January-March earnings and sales were well above all expectations, boosted by strong growth in the phone market. The firm, which sells more than one in three of all mobiles, increased its market share, but rival Motorola reported even faster sales growth, boosted by the ultra-thin clamshell RAZR model.

In the first quarter, Nokia had a global market share of 32.8 percent, compared with second-ranked Motorola with 20.1 percent, according to data from research outfit Strategy Analytics.

Quite how they're maintaining such an iron grip on the industry given the absolutely massive competition befuddles me. Not only that, but they do so without OTA software updates and some major software screwups, not to mention mediocre camera optics. Still, there's nothing else I'd rather call and text on.

[Hands0n]

It has to be a familiarity thing. Being a very early player, and with a robust handset design from the off Nokia have been doing the right thing for a very long time. Long enough for the latest Symbian OS messups to be forgiven? Who knows, they'd better not rest on any laurels as the buying punter can be very fickle.

But to be sure, the familiarity of use from the earliest handsets to the most recent is a hallmark of Nokia, and one that they would do well to continue to build and develop on.

Contrast other manufacturers to date who have had a different paradigm almost every generation of handset. Only of late, does it seem, that they are settling on a constant that their customers can migrate across.

None of us like to have to learn a whole new handset paradigm each time we buy a new model of handset - unless, of course, we are changing manufacturers in which case we kind of expect it to be a significant difference.