Strand blames USA and Press for smartphone distortion

Rating: Other 2010 predictions include nice Nokia UI

Ever since Strand Consult accused iPhone users of being deluded (see GoMo News passim), GoMo has been impressed by the analyst firm’s bravery. Now it is accusing the USA and journalists of distorting views on the smartphone market. And predicts a nice UI from Nokia.

Thumbing through Strand’s predictions for 2010, it is pretty controversial (as always).

This is what Strand said about US influence. “When you read many of the articles published by the media around the world, it appears as if the USA – that has 7 per cent of the global mobile market – is a good representation of the global mobile market – but it is most certainly not.”

Of course, Strand probably isn’t including GoMo News amongst those sinners who overate the US market.

When it comes to Nokia… “Nokia’s new UI for the Series 60 will be a positive surprise.” That’s good news. It also says that Nokia will fall for the touchscreen fad, too.

Luckily for touchscreen phobes, “The question is not whether ordinary mobile phones will have touchscreens, but how large a share of them will have touchscreens in 2010?”. Hopefully less than 50 per cent, we say.

This is another goodie. “We will see a large growth in the Smartphone area, but not a growth driven by customer demand for smartphones, but by the fact that an increasing number of market players will replace traditional operating systems with Smartphone OS.”

So Nokia will replace its boring Series 40 handsets with Smartphone OS ones and Samsung will focus on Bada during 2010 to do so.

And Strand’s pot shot at Apple is … “Their iPhone is now two years old and has reached an age where it will take more than just a facelift. If Apple does not launch new products during 2010, they will experience a massive decrease in mobile phone sales.

As far as Android goes, ” In 2010 we will still see the traditional market players driving the volume market.” Although it says that HTC has some nice Android phones, Strand thinks that the existing players [perhaps Motorola] will rally around Android and squeeze out new players like Acer and Dell.

Strand 2010 predictions should certainly create a big stir, then.

Tony is based in Surrey and is a veteran comms journalist. Tony also writes on the UK market… contact him here tony@mobileinsight.co.uk