Nokia's market share continue to slip in Western Europe

­According to IDC, The Western European Mobile Phone market recorded another quarter of year-on-year declines in the second quarter of 2009 (2Q09). Handset vendors shipped 42 million units to Western Europe, down 6% from 2Q08.

The switch from traditional mobile phones to converged mobile devices continued to be a major trend in Western Europe. Traditional mobile phones declined 12% during the quarter to 33.2 million units, and converged mobile devices (commonly known as smart phones) experienced a healthy 25% increase during the quarter to 8.8 million units, when compared to the same period last year. For the full year, IDC believes that the Western European market will decline 10%. Demand for converged mobile devices will continue to grow, but will not be strong enough to reverse the overall market decline as they represent only 21% of total shipments. On the other hand, traditional mobile phones will continue to decline, though at a lower rate, as vendors adjust their portfolios, bringing more features to the low-end devices.

But, the fact that caught my attention was that amongst the biggest handset vendors, Korean manufacturers continue to perform better than Scandinavian phone makers. For the first time, Samsung and LG together shipped more devices to Western Europe than Nokia. Nokia continues to be the market leader, with 36.3% market share, but the gap to Samsung, the second biggest vendor with 28.9% market share, continues to diminish. On the other hand, LG continues to challenge Sony Ericsson's market position, and the success of its touch screen handsets allowed LG to get 11.5% market share, the highest ever in Western Europe. The table below gives a better understanding -




Top Western European Mobile Phone Vendors,
Shipments and Market Share, 2Q09 (Units in Millions)
Vendor         2Q09 Unit    2Q09 Market      2Q08 Unit    2Q08Market    2Q09/2Q08
                     Shipments             Share       Shipments            Share          Change
Nokia             15.3                    36%                19                     43%             -19%
Samsung         12.2                    29%                10.9                  24%              12%
Sony Ericsson 5.1                      12%                6.2                    14%             -18%
LG                 4.8                      11%                2.8                      6%               71%
Apple             1.4                        3%                0.2                      0%             600%
RIM               1.2                        3%                0.8                      2%               50%
Others            2                           5%                4.7                    11%              -57%
Total              42                     100%                44.6                 100%                -6%

Source: IDC European Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, August 26, 2009
Note: Vendor shipments are branded shipments and exclude OEM sales for all vendors.

Nokia needs to connect differently.