It's already been answered.
Nokia doesn't sell well in North America but they are very popular in Europe and Asia.
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Apple Becomes Fourth-Largest Mobile Phone Vendor
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It's already been answered.
Nokia doesn't sell well in North America but they are very popular in Europe and Asia.
Courtesy of Horace Dediu at Aysmco (IMO, the best Apple business analysis site I've seen), here are pie charts of Apple's global cellphone market share against the competition for 3Q10 (July~September) compared to 3Q07 in units sold, sales revenue and profits. Apple is number four in units sold, number two in total revenue, and number one by a mile (and then some!) in profits. Talk about disruption of a huge established market in mere 3 years!
UNIT
SALES
PROFITS (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes)
UNIT
SALES
PROFITS (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes)
I wonder what these numbers would look like, if they removed devices, that are not ever used as smartphones.
Nokia sell millions of devices which are theoretically capable of Email and web use. But are sold without data plans, and are never employed as smartphones by the users.
Nokia sell millions of devices which are theoretically capable of Email and web use. But are sold without data plans, and are never employed as smartphones by the users.
I guess we'll never know as I can't see how that would be measurable. How the device is used doesn't stop it from being what it is though; a smartphone's a smartphone, regardless of how you use it.
I'd say you are deliberately and intentionally misunderstanding what I posted. Apple has publicly stated that they are willing to pay Nokia the same patent fees as everyone else does, but they are not giving in to Nokia's unfair and illegal demands (Nokia obviously sees the situation slightly different). In such a situation, Nokia _will not accept_ the money that Apple offers (accepting the lower payment would weaken their legal position). And since Apple knows that this money will eventually have to be paid, it will be put into a separate escrow account, so that Apple can tell the judge "look, we put all the money that Nokia deserves into this account, and they can have it whenever they want". That money will appear in Apple's accounts under "short term liabilities" because the moment that Nokia accepts what Apple offers, Apple would have to pay up.
What you say isn't wrong, but it isn't helpful. This is not about technical features, it is about profitable and less profitable phones. iPhone and comparable phones are more profitable, and the simple, cheaper phones are less profitable. And Nokia sells a lot of phones that are technically smartphones, but fall into the "less profitable" category. Over the last year, the number of Nokia phones that are technically smartphones has grown by 61 percent, with a massive drop in average sale price. That shows that the growth in smartphone sales didn't happen because Nokia moved customers from buying less profitable to more profitable phones, but because Nokia sold to the same customers at the same low prices, but selling them what is technically a smart phone instead of a dumb phone.
In five years time _every_ phone will be a smartphone. And all those people who today buy a cheap dumb phone to just make phonecalls will instead buy a cheap smartphone just to make phone calls. Nokia will sell 100 million smartphones instead of 26 million, and they won't be one penny better off for it.
OK, that feels better. If Nokia's demands are unfair and illegal, I hope the law sees it that way.
Sometimes when something seems to good to be true (such as Apple's success in such a tough time), it probably is too good to be true in some aspects.
When I saw the documentary on Enron, their super loyal, almost cult-like culture around Jeffrey Skilling reminded me a lot of Steve Jobs and Apple. Quirky, talented, charismatic, mercurial, and genius are adjectives I attribute with Skilling and Jobs.
Let's see if Apple can get by ethically and maybe Nokia is the one who will lose. I have not followed this one but I sure hope it isn't a bad result for Apple.
Hang on, since when did a smartphone have to be 'more profitable' to be a smartphone? That just sounds like something plucked from thin air simply because Apple makes gobs of money on the iPhone!
You're right, Nokia will sell 100million smartphones instead of 26million. Will they be better off? Absolutely irrelevent.
Good point.
I don't care if smartphones have to be more profitable, personally, I just hope they make me look cooler than the other guy or gal who has a competing smartphone.
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This isn't a surprising output, the Apple brand is so well reputed now that they can even sell sand like pan cakes. Nokia, Samsung and others are ahead because they've got a bigger volume of products, but I'm extremely sure that Apple will come up to that level in a few months.
"Everyone else" has lower GSM/WiFi license fees because they also cross-license valuable patents with each other.
Apple, being a latecomer to phones, has no radio patents to share. So Nokia offered them several other options, including a lower fee with patent-sharing of things Apple does own (probably iOS related).
However, Apple does not want to cross-license their patents, arguing that the "smart" part of smartphones has nothing to do with radios. Which I think is a valid point, but then they must owe a larger fee if they share nothing. They can't have their cake and eat it too.
Note that in Nokia's complaint, they do not set a price. Nokia asks a jury to set whatever fee that they think is fair.
Traditionally, GSM fees are set to be a percentage of the retail price of a phone. This was done to encourage manufacturers to sell more affordable phones, which in turn broadens GSM appeal. This goes against Apple's desire to maintain unusually high profit margins (two to three times everyone else) at the customer's expense.
Hmmm.
Surely consumers determine the profit margin on a product?
Prices are set by markets, not by accountants.
C.