The big five roll on, but Motorola drops down the ranking
Rating: life on a Razr’s edge
By Annie Turner
Again according to Gartner’s figures, the world’s five biggest mobile phone makers have increased their market shares and accounted for 81.6% of the global market.
Nokia’s sales to end users totalled 110.2 million units to attain a market share of 38.%, the highest year-on-year market share increase. The well-oiled machine moves on.
Samsung’s sales to end users reached 41.8 million units and saw the vendor gain the number two position due to better management of its channel inventory. Sales of its Ultra Edition II series grew in Western Europe, where Samsung reached 21% market share, its strongest performance ever in the region. Snazzy design, competitive pricing and getting the channel right has paid huge dividends.
What is it with Motorola though? It has a history of not having enough stock at crucial times and making a mess with the channel. It never seems to learn its lesson, despite the fact that such fundamental supply errors cost it dear: in the third quarter it lost its number two ranking, dropping 7.6% market share compared with the same quarter last year. Heads need to roll. Yes, we all loved the RAZR and RAZR2 has been well-received, but one swallow doesn’t make a drinking binge.
Sony Ericsson’s positive performance continued in the third quarter as sales reached 25.4 million units. More than you can say about one of its parent companies, Ericcson, which is in big, big trouble.
LG sold 20.5 million units in the third quarter of 2007 and reached a market share of 7.1%. Apparently LG faced stronger competition in markets such as India, where the CDMA market has become tough as operators did deals with new entrants such as ZTE. LG is between a rock and a hard place, facing competition from whippersnappers at the bottom and the bigger guys above - without having a huge amount of clout in the market. Nevertheless it has so far proved itself to be a flexible, wily operator.
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