Nokia clinging to handset lead by fingertips

Rating: Another bad quarter & Samsung becomes No: 1

Nokia Lumia Mango phone

Good news for Nokia mobile phone aficionados is that the company didn’t do as badly in Q3 2011 as some might have feared. The bad news is that if these trends are repeated in Q4 2011, Nokia could easily be overtaken by Samsung. It all kind of hinges on how well consumers react to Nokia’s first Windows Mango (WP7.5) smartphones. Data from Strategy Analytics showed that Nokia share of the global handset market fell by five per cent from 32.3 per cent for Q3 2010 to 27.3 per cent in Q3 2011. By contrast, Samsung’s share rose to 22.6 per cent from 20.9 per cent. However, if Nokia drops another 5 per cent in Q4 2011, Samsung’s share would only have to stay steady (and not even benefit from Nokia’s decline) for it to become the world’s No: 1 vendor of mobile phones.Significantly, figures from IDC (International Data Corporation) estimated that Nokia’s share had slipped even further to 27.1 per cent, although Samsung benefitted less with a share of 22.3 per cent.

If Nokia slipped further according to IDC but Samsung rose less, who made the gains. Step forward one ZTE whose fortunes GoMo News has followed very closely indeed.

According to Alex Spektor, a senior analyst with Strategy Analytics, “ZTE was the star performer.” IDC appears to agree.

It says ZTE boosted its sales by 57.9 per cent to take a 4.9 per cent of the global market which is actually ahead of Apple’ because it had only 4.3 per cent.

We’re talking total mobile phone sales here – not smartphone market shares which are very different.

Samsung claimed it is the smartphone champion with 28 million shipping in Q3 2011 which is around four times as many as in Q3 2010. Earlier Apple said it had shipped around 17 million smartphones.

What’s interesting is that Strategy Analytics believes Apple had slipped to fifth place in the global handset market because people were waiting for its latest iPhone – which turned out to be the 4S model not an iPhone 5.

The same logic applies to Nokia, however. It will finally start shipping its Mango based smartphones in Q4 2011.

As well all know, sales in the fourth quarter just before Xmas have a disproportionate effect on a handset vendor’s sales over a 12 month period.