Apple and samsung up, nokia down

Throughout 2009, intense price competition put pressure on average selling prices (ASPs). This forced major mobile phone vendors to go more aggressively in markets such as China and India to compete with white-box producers, while in mature markets they competed hard with each other for market share.

Three of the top five mobile phone vendors. Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson. experienced a decline in sales in 2009. The top five vendors continued to lose market share to Apple and other vendors, with their combined share dropping from 79.7% in 2008 to 75.3 per cent in 2009.

In 2009, Nokia's annual mobile phone sales to end users reached 441 million units, a 2.2 per cent drop in market share from 2008. Although Nokia outperformed industry expectations in sales and revenue in the fourth quarter of 2009, its declining smartphone ASP showed that it continues to face challenges from other smartphone vendors. "Nokia will face a tough first half of 2010 as improvement to Symbian and new products based on the Meego platform will not reach the market well before the second half of 2010," said Ms Milanesi. "Its very strong mid-tier portfolio will help it hold market share, but its ongoing weakness at the high end of the portfolio will hurt its share of market value."

Samsung was the clear winner among the top five with market share growing by 3.2 percentage points from 2008. This achievement came as a result of improved channel relationships with distributors to extend its reach and better address the needs of individual markets as well as a rich mid-tier portfolio. For 2010, the company is putting a focus on Bada, its new operating system (OS) that aims at adding the value of an ecosystem to its successful hardware lineup. Motorola sold slightly more than half of its 2008 sales and exhibited the sharpest drop in market share, accounting for 4.8% market share in 2009.

In the smartphone OS market, Symbian continued its lead, but its share dropped 5.4% points in 2009. Competitive pressure from its competitors, such as RIM and Apple, and the continued weakness of Nokia's high-end device sales have negatively impacted Symbian's share.Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet Button