Nokia is still sleeping OS giant says InMobi

Rating: Finns have most to fear from Android

Some enlightening stats have just emerged from InMobi which claims to be the world’s largest independent mobile ad network. It’s looked at the impressions received on its network over 125 countries in six regions. So it can hardly be accused of being US centric. The upshot is that the figures show Nokia’s own OS plus Symbian together still have half of the market. Then’s its Apple followed by Android. Windows Mobile comes almost nowhere. The conclusions inMobi reaches from pouring over this data are worth noting.

Firstly, inMobi says that the in future, Apple iPhone OS will face much stiffer competition from Nokia and Android globally.

Why? Well, the Apple OS is closed in nature and hits premium price points. Not a good idea when you’re fighting for share against major competitors in emerging markets.

“Nokia remains a sleeping giant with a 47 per cent share of consumer mobile ad impressions globally,” the report says.

But Nokia should be worried about Android and not Apple because, “Android offers Nokia its greatest competitive challenge given price points and open-sourced user experience.”

Nokia’s attitude towards Android reminds GoMo News of its stiff defiance of market trends over clamshell handset designs. It held out for ages and then conceded defeat by calling its own handsets ‘fold-design’.

But it could still sell folders into the important Chinese market. Eventually Nokia was proved right, though. Which smartphone today isn’t candy bar shaped rather than being a clamshell?

Nokia needs to do the same with Android, GoMo News feels. Cave in and sell a few Android handsets until Symbian becomes ‘Open’ enough to compete head-on with Android.

Meanwhile, here’s another notable InMobi observation… “With over 24 per cent of iPhone impressions globally now in Europe, iPhone developers are among the first to experience mobile advertising globalisation.”

So iPhone is a good bet, then.

Don’t just take our word for it, the full InMobi research data can be downloaded here.