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.

Sony Erricsson's handset profits up, Motorola reported loss

As per media reports, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications quarter 1 earnings for 2007 has more than doubled on strong sales of its "Walkman" music-capable handsets. Sony totally outclassed its larger rivals Nokia and Motorola, which had reported reduced profits and a horrid little loss, respectively.
Net profit for Sony Ericsson was $346 million in the first three months of the year, up from $148 million in the same period last year. Sales soared 47 percent, to $3.99 billion from $2.7 billion in the first quarter of 2006. Units shipped in the quarter reached 21.8 million, a 63-percent increase from the 13.3 million shipped in the first quarter of 2006, although considerably fewer than the 26 million phones shipped in the final quarter of last year.
The lesser performance came despite a decrease in average selling prices (ASPs), from $202 per unit in the first quarter of 2006 to $182, reflecting the company's thrust into developing markets.

In the year 2007 global handset market sales of more than 1.1 billion units is forcasted.
In the worst showing of the week, Motorola reported its first quarterly loss in three years ($181 million), hurt by costs and stumbling sales. The company's worldwide market share for handsets dropped to about 17.5 percent, down from 22 percent in 2006.