The Wall Street Journal reported that Nokia‘s focus on smartphones has hurt the company in terms of its market share and profit margins. The article attributes the decision to focus intently on smartphones to a concern that Microsoft might succeed in establishing itself as the technological platform for future high-end mobile phones through its Windows Mobile initiatives. As Nokia invested increasing resources in the Symbian platform, consumers purchased mid-range phones with high resolution color displays, digital cameras, and clamshell designs.
Whenever I see consumer market analysis like this, I look for confirmation in personal experience and readily available sales information. This weekend, my brother told me that he bought an LG VX6000 for use on Verizon Wireless. Note that 14 out of 16 of LG’s CDMA models are clamshell designs, most have high resolution displays, and several have cameras.
Here is a breakdown of the Top 5 mobile phones on Amazon.com:
Motorola V300, T-Mobile, camera, clamshell
Motorola i730, Nextel, no camera, clamshell
Sony Ericsson T610, T-Mobile, camera, no clamshell
Samsung E715, T-Mobile, camera, clamshell
Motorola V600, AT&T, camera, clamshell
The highest ranking Nokia phone currently on sale at Amazon is the Nokia 6600 Phone at number 10. This is the phone that I am currently testing on the T-Mobile network.
I do not like clamshell phones, because I have had phone reliability problems that have been traced back to hinges and earpieces. Although Nokia has not made many phones in the clamshell style recently, I don’t think the lack of this design feature is a major problem for them.
The problem I believe is most affecting Nokia is that their best phones, the Series 60 models, have very sophisticated, esoteric features. For example, the organizer functions of the Nokia 6600 require IRDA or Bluetooth connectivity with a PC for full utilization. Phone number lookup is somewhat complicated, partly because their organizer software has so many different options. On the other hand, most “mid-range” phones have considerably simpler phone books and don’t depend upon wireless networking to connect to a PC, if they do that at all.
I think Nokia is on its way to filling the gap in its product line. But, many in the media think that significant damage to Nokia’s long term marketshare has already been done. I don’t agree, if only because I remember the articles that were all over the place last year about how badly Motorola had misjudged the mobile phone market. Today, they have fast-selling phones in every product category, including smartphones.