Nokia becomes the 4th largest Smartphone Brand in USA

[alv3st3r]

After years of struggle in one of the most premium and important smartphone market in the world, USA, Nokia is finally seeing its smartphone strategy and hard work bearing fruits. During Q3 2013, Nokia became the fourth largest smartphone brand capturing a record high 4% market share in a market which is a virtual duopoly dominated by Apple & Samsung.

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Nokia captured the fourth spot for the first time since the iPhone launch, overtaking Motorola, HTC, BlackBerry, Huawei, ZTE & other brands. The key reason for this growth can be attributed to the big change in the Finnish vendor?s approach and go-to-market strategy towards selling its new phones in this highly operator-controlled US market compared to the less flexible attitude during the time when iPhone was launched. Nokia has thus in the last few years of post-Symbian transition has worked more closely with multiple operators offering them highly differentiated exclusive products with targeted and unique value propositions. This extra effort has helped Nokia steadily build its Lumia portfolio as well as win more shelf spaces at multiple carriers to reach at this inflection point.

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Source: Counterpoint Research

 

[KKRLessey]

Yes! They need to be on more carriers in America though for the 1520.

 

[inteller]

lol, that's got to particularly sting for HTC....BB we know is washed up, but HTC is next.

 

[Microsoftjunkie]

Even though that's good news, the news sounds more positive than it should be. All of this came at the heels of the 520/1. Nokia still has an extremely long way before we all can say they made it. Lets just keep supporting and keep flaunting our windows phone. J/k

 

[Paul May]

I agree that there is a long way to go yet. But this is a long journey and another step in the right direction. Way to go Nokia. Keep climbing

 

[troylytle]

I would say another stratagem pertaining to the lower end is to have users want to upgrade to higher end models and increasing future revenue.

 

[gsquared]

GOOG paid $12 billion for Motorola and are substantially behind Nokia. MSFT purchase is one for the record books.

 

[inteller]

mainly Motorola hasn't had any nexus backed phones like LG and Samsung have. I'm guessing that's where a lot of LGs market share has come from.

 

[lippidp]

All of that effort will be lost when the Nokia name is killed after the MS acquisition. It's really a shame they are going to kill the brand.

 

[unstoppablekem]

RIP BlackBerry

 

[ohgood]

All of that effort will be lost when the Nokia name is killed after the MS acquisition. It's really a shame they are going to kill the brand.

Yep, I'm wondering what they're going to do for future brand recognition.

I looked at the percentages and thought, "so 1.5% change is the difference between 4th , 6th or 8th places?"

Blackberries death isn't exactly what I would call a point in victory for sales percentages.

 

[hopmedic]

Yes, there is a long road ahead, but Microsoft has never been a company to play the short game. They're always in for the long haul.

 

[gerrymad]

HTC could have joined in and I think Nokia and HTC would have benefitted from the larger overall WP presence which would have resulted. I really thought with the 8X HTC was going to get serious. Even now my 8X still gets attention when people see it.

 

[MSFTisMIA]

My guess is that HTC saw how long it would take for MSFT to put out the OS supporting their key hardware features - 1080p screen + quad core - and punted, hoping the One would sell enough to buy them time in the WP game.

As an owner of the 8X, I'm disappointed not at the phone itself, but for HTC not being in a position to have really swung for the fences. From a design point of view, only the 925 can stand up to the 8X in the high end and nothing beats the 8S in the low end market.

I wished they had put wireless charging in the 8X, went to 32GB internal, and has gone to 8GB internal for the 8S. Wish they leveraged the audio department with an equalizer for Beats and a few music apps and accessories. But we will see what they do next cycle. We still need HTC and Samsung, because if MSFT does complete the Nokia purchase, I don't want them to be the only partner making wp8 devices...

 

[z33dev33l]

Let's face it, HTC hasn't innovated in 5 years.

 

[squire777]

Google must be steaming that they can't even sell Moto's on their home turf.

 

[anon(7808135)]

I hope Nokia can dominate the market in the next few years. It would be nice to see people using Nokia devices. Yes i know my name but don't worry about that. I'm big on Microsoft products also.

 

[xandros9]

I'm skeptical HTC is below in smartphones, I still see boatloads of HTCs compared to Lumias

 

[crav4speed]

I hope Nokia can dominate the market in the next few years. It would be nice to see people using Nokia devices. Yes i know my name but don't worry about that. I'm big on Microsoft products also.

Impossible if the buyout occurs. The purchase is set to happen Q1/2014 and the Nokia name will be gone forever unless Nokia decides to start making devices again in 2016.

MS really needs to keep the momentum going which I think they can do. Nokia did make the hardware but the most important part of that relationship was marketing the Lumia name which has become synonymous with Windows Phone. Since MS can't use the Nokia name, they need to keep the Lumia brand alive because changing it to anything else would be disastrous for them at this stage.

The problem is, will people still buy the Lumia brand of devices without the Nokia badge??

 

[PB_H]

4th LARGEST :grin:

Kind of a contradiction in terms I would say...