Nokia lowers 2010 guidance again

Posted by Gavin Byrne Friday, June 18th, 2010

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All is not well at Nokia. The world’s largest handset vendor, which shipped 107.8 million handsets in 1Q10, including 21.5 million converged devices (aka smartphones), announced Wednesday the second downgrade to its expected 2010 financial performance.

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Google’s momentum is growing in the mobile handset market

Posted by Gavin Byrne Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

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Eric Schmidt, Google’s Chairman and CEO, last week revealed that the company’s “partners are shipping about 65,000 Android handsets per day”. Assuming Google’s hard working partners keep going at weekends, and if that rate were to be extended over the next year, there would be nearly 24 million new Android-based handsets shipped. That’s an impressive number for an OS platform that only launched its first handset 19 months ago, in late October 2008.

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Shipment growth in 2Q09 reassures mobile handset industry

Posted by Gavin Byrne Thursday, August 6th, 2009

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The recent 2Q09 earnings results of the world’s top five handset vendors by volume showed a quarter-on-quarter growth of 12.1% in shipment numbers, led by LG, Samsung and Nokia. With channel inventory reduced to more normal levels, prospects for continued quarterly growth in 2H09 have improved. However, challengers such as ZTE could displace Motorola or Sony Ericsson while they restructure. Meanwhile, Nokia is increasingly focusing on value.

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Apple fiscal Q309 results: iPhone 3G S performing well as iPod sales decrease

Posted by Gavin Byrne Thursday, August 6th, 2009

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The headline grabbing announcement from Apple’s results on Tuesday was that iPhone sales had grown 626% year on year to 5.2 million. Although statistically correct, one year ago Apple were consciously ramping down sales of the iPhone 2G in advance of the iPhone 3G launch. Nevertheless, the company from Cupertino can take a number of positives from the iPhone’s recent performance:
- Sales of the iPhone 3G S were strong, registering over 1 million sales within three days of its launch on 19th June,
- Although as yet unquantified it seems that the reduced retail price of the iPhone 3G at least created increased consumer interest and probably increased sales
- The now customary shortages of the latest iPhone seem likely to continue into next quarter while the company looks to extend its distribution from 18 to 80 countries.
The positive iPhone performance is important for Apple given the drop in iPod volume sales, in part due to Apple’s decision to reduce channel inventory and from the maturing MP3 player market being cannibalized by both the iPod Touch and the iPhone. Reassuringly iPod Touch sales also performed “extremely well” in the quarter.

Nokia’s World is turning

Posted by Gavin Byrne Friday, December 5th, 2008

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Nokia’s now annual pilgrimage to Barcelona for Nokia World was a little disorienting for this analyst. There was sunshine in December, early morning starts, a lively, loud, enjoyable Nokia Party, and plenty of jamon y queso. But most confusing was the amount of green on show. Some could have thought themselves transported to certain OS company’s event. But no, it was Nokia underlining its environmental credentials.

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