RIM and Apple gain more smartphone marketshare at Nokia’s expense

By on Mar 11, 2009 at 10:32 AM
Retail March 11, 2009

Pledge your smartphone loyalty to whatever brand you wish, but the fact of the matter remains that more and more people are leaving the Finnish juggernaut Nokia in favor of devices from RIM and Apple. During Q4 2008, Nokia’s overall market share fell from 50.9 percent to 40.8 percent and smartphone sales dipped a whopping 17 percent to 15.6 million units. As always, one company’s loss is another’s gain and no two companies highlighted this fact more than more than RIM and Apple. Both more or less doubled their smartphone market share, which now stand at 19.5 percent and 10.7 percent respectively. Apart from the big three, sales of HTC devices were up 20 percent while Samsung saw its sales increase by an amazing 138 percent to 1.6 million units. Still, they each only command modest stake in the smartphone market at 4.3 percent and 1.8 percent respectively. We’re hard-pressed to think of a time where there has been such a large shift in market share for any mobile phone segment, but then again this is the first economic meltdown to occur during the age of the smartphone which has in turn meant fewer new models to snap up.

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41 Comments

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  • JakeyBoy

    I’ve had every “it” phone, and I always go back to the iPhone. Maybe the Pre will change my mind. We’ll see. The Apple OS is smooth and looks polished. All the other OS’s are a bit clunky and jagged. Just my opinion. Sure there are things about each OS that are slightly better than the next, but as far as a whole, Apple wins.

  • Mark

    Awesome! More people who don’t understand product release cycles!

    Let’s review here: In Q4 Apple had the post launch Xmas sales of the iPhone which accounted for about 4 million sales. Of course, this was down from 6 million the quarter before and now that the market is getting saturated it’ll drop further next quarter. RIM released the Storm, put the Bold into production and released new Curve versions.

    Nokia released… um… err… maybe the N85 and possibly the N79 neither of which were particularly marketed or hyped.

    So Apple and RIM made gains in one quarter where they had major release with appropriate marketing campaigns or a major release the quarter before. Care to guess what’s going to happen next quarter when Apple’s sales decrease and Nokia get a boost from sales of the 5800? Go on, take a wild stab in the dark!

    However, what’s even more amusing is BGR – like all the other technical journals who were busy fapping over Apple overtaking WinMo’s market share – fail to mention that, as predicted by all of us who actually understand market dynamics, it’s dropped behind again! More awesomeness.

    Seriously, stick to reviewing gadgets. Your quite good at that and, frankly, you suck at market dynamics.

  • JakeyBoy

    Why would Apple’s sales diminish? How long did the Razr take to fall off the charts? Who says BGR are Apple fanboys? I’m pretty sure they are BB fans.

  • Wifiguy

    Yeah, iPhone has 25,000 applications running so I call that a smartphone.

  • ThisGuy

    As well as they provide news and stories for us, BGR are fanboys of both Apple and RIM. They watch too many iPhone and BB commercials.

    When they are talking about the business side of the industry, BGR is absolutely clueless. The technical reviews are good, but their opinions are uber bias, and this is from not understanding how the business works. Let’s face it, the writers are just normal guys sitting in front of their computers. They have probably never worked within the industry, theyre just gadget freaks who put up website.

  • http://davidthande.blogspot.com David Thande

    Jackass so does Nientendo!

  • JakeyBoy

    some of their writers used to work for Engadget. or so they say…

  • andy

    I agree with many posts in here, but also disagree. I think there are two main issues nokia isnt selling its share of smartphones these days.
    #1. is the OS. I have owned many s60 devices in my day, and i like the layout of it. everything is exactly where i know it will be. on the downside, many people out there want a phone with a unique UI, and s60 does not have that. My sister, who is used to proprietary samsung phones used my n95 and said she didnt like it. It was too boring for her. This is arguably the most feature packed phone on the market (even today), but the UI was boring.
    #2. build quality. visit an official s60 thread in howardforums.com and read the comments. I was almost sold on the specs of the n85, then I read up about peoples experiences with it, and when 90% of the people that bothered to post said they are experiencing failures and are sending them back after a week of ownership, i decided to get a tested and true n82. Nokia sent their finland plants to china, and this is what you get. 5800 anyone>?

  • jazzyl

    I like both RIM and Nokia.

  • JakeyBoy

    and by the way, iPhone just announced a new OS—3.0…what say you!

  • http://davidthande.blogspot.com David Thande

    Oh god prepare to be disapointed Apple fan boys!

  • backbeat

    ^Said the sanctimonious, self-aggrandizing, shrill lil hater of those things it doesn’t understand nor have the mental curiosity to experience.

    I’m a pc.

  • http://davidthande.blogspot.com David Thande

    @ BackBeat Shut your hole! Don’t look for any hidden messages or insight into my personality. Just shut your pie hole!

  • backbeat

    ^No insight required where you’re concerned. If you were any more a -transparent- unapologetic, shameless troll, you wouldn’t exist. ;)

  • http://davidthande.blogspot.com David Thande

    @ backbeat. Your P-i-e. H-o-l-e!

    Thanks

  • backbeat

    ^Lonely lil cave you drag your knuckles in, isn’t it? If it weren’t so hysterical … it’d just be sad.

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