Apple is about as entrenched a brand as you can possibly get. They've managed to maintain their position as a desirable brand thanks to industrial design that, while stale, still feels good. Many consumers default to the iPhone without even thinking. And there's a good reason for this. For the uninformed Apple devices just work. They don't do anything special over the competition, but everyone is familiar with the platform. Because of widespread adoption iPhones and iPads are highly supported. You know it's going to work with your car and a multitude of other peripherals specifically because all these companies invested the effort in ensuring compatibility.
So any decline Apple may experience is going to be gradual. And what will likely happen, like happened to Microsoft in the desktop space, is that no one will have any clear dominance. Apple had the advantage of being a first mover with a genuinely good phone in a young and evolving market space. Now that things have matured somewhat that advantage has evaporated.
The problem is that far too many people had unrealistic expectations, and there seems to be this persistent mindset that there can only be one dominant player. This despite the fact that in most industries that is not the case. So people are already billing Samsung as the next champion. Somehow, if you aren't selling on their level you've already failed. Nokia's prior dominance is totally irrelevant here. That was so far removed from the present era of mobile phones that Nokia doesn't even register for many Americans beyond a novel, where-are-they-now kind of mindset. Nokia maintained a strong presence overseas than they did in the US. So you have to count Nokia as a new player.
Apple outselling Nokia 10-to-1 is meaningless in this context. Nokia's 4th quarter was a good one. What really matters is how 2013 plays out.
I will point out that the American retail model sucks. Being a sales leader ensures prominent retail space. But what most people don't realize is that companies also have to pay for retail space, the better the spot the more expensive it is. And even then you're left to the whim of the individual store, whether or not employees care about doing their job properly.
To this day, the Targets I've been to have the Lumia 900 on display, not the 920. As of a month ago Best Buy had no Lumia 920s, but did have the 820 and the HTC 8X. AT&T stores are pathetic; huge, imposing Apple displays with the Lumia 920, in black, tucked away in a corner of the store. You have to search for it to realize they carry them at all. They should have a prominent display with every color of the phone sitting there side-by-side for everyone to ogle.
It's a crap deal Nokia is getting for it's AT&T exclusivity. They squander advertising dollars on meaningless celebrity TV spots. Just so that consumers can walk into stores, not see the Nokia's anywhere and instead be distracted by the gleaming iPhones.
That said, I don't think any rational thinking adult didn't think this was going to be an uphill battle for Nokia. So far things are looking encouraging.