14 DAY TRIAL // Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia is expected to see its handset shipments moving on an ascendant curve during the ongoing year, Nokia’s new mobile phones Head, Rick Simonson, stated recently in an interview. The company aims at registering a faster growth than other handset vendors, he also mentioned, adding that the company is expected to be on par with Apple and RIM on the smartphone market by 2011.
“We have three operating platforms - Maemo (for mobile computers), Symbian (for smartphones) and our own proprietary platform OS for our mobile phones, which also happens to be the largest in the world in terms of installed handset volumes. In 2010, Nokia will ship over 500 million units across three platforms, which will be about 40 per cent of the global market share and will reach everywhere, from the remotest village in Kenya/parts of Africa to India, to the US,” Simonson stated.
At the same time, he also admits that the Finnish vendor has been losing market share in the smartphone segment during the past several quarters, but says that Maemo and Symbian, the mobile operating system with the largest market share around the world, will help its comeback. Nokia's strategy will focus on delivering inexpensive solutions to users, including devices with access to Internet, email, chat, music, entertainment and other services.
“If we look at the figures, 50 per cent of smartphone devices globally are on Nokia/Symbian. In smartphones, we are not well positioned in North America, which is a huge market. […] We shipped over 200 million smartphones last year and our strategy is volume driven. We have been stable in this segment and are trying to strengthen our position in the North American market,” he added.
It seems that this is not the first time Nokia says that it will ship over 500 million devices in 2010, as Reuters points out. Moreover, the company is confident that its current position on the market, as well as the position of the platforms it uses, will help it gain more share. With a large number of smartphone OSes at large, only the well positioned ones are expected to show growth in the future, mainly due to the fact that developers will be attracted to them.