Rating: Apparently there’s such a thing as iFatigue
UK and Ireland general manager with Nokia, Conor Pierce, appears to have coined the term ‘iFatigue’ to describe British retailers attitude towards the very latest iOS devices from Apple. He was speaking to The Sun here, which just so happens to be the UK’s best selling printed daily newspaper. Nice scoop, Conor. Apparently, Pierce reckons that W7 Mango (Windows Phone) is the company’s secret weapon which will enable the Finnish mobile handset producer to claw its way back in the UK smartphone sales charts.The Sun didn’t say where it has got its figures, but it reckons that Nokia enjoys less than five per cent of the UK smartphone market whilst the iPhone commands a 25 per cent share.
Surely that means that Android has at least twice market share that Apple enjoys in the UK?
GoMo News would regard these statements as further evidence that Nokia needs to throw in the towel and go with the operating system which must be enjoying at least a 50 per cent share of the UK smartphone market – Android.
What Pierce actually said was this … “Retailers are telling me that there’s an element of iFatigue. There’s a sense of What’s next? My ambition is to bring Nokia back to a point of leadership in the UK.”
There were also hints that Nokia also hopes to take advantage of BlackBerry fatigue following the Canadian company’s well-publicised three day outage.
Pierce is very obviously placing his hopes on Nokia’s latest Windows Phone (W7 Mango) handsets – although nobody ever seems to mention the Lumia 710. They all seem to concentrate on the Lumia 800.
Which could be interesting because there are already reports that the 710 might precede the 800 in the all important US market. In essence, the 710 is a cheaper version of the 800.
Pierce also told the Sun that, “The Lumia brings balance to the market as there have been only one or two operating systems.
We haven’t been acting at the speed we should have but now it’s very clear we’re a challenger.”
One or two, eh? Well RIM’s BlackBerry OS is very definitely a stronger contender whatever Nokia might choose to believe.
Plus there are several possible outsiders like Samsung’s bada; Intel’s Tizen (also backed by Samsung) as well as HP’s webOS.
Pierce has done well to get into such an esteemed publication. But to claim that the Lumia has been getting rave reviews is a little disingenuous. From whom exactly are these rave review coming, GoMo News asks?
Come on, no rave reviews? So much for Engadget, Gizmodo, the Independent, Guardian, etc etc. And being on top of best seller’s lists in the markets it was launched it is no mean feat considering iPhone 4S and Galaxy Nexus launched in the same timeframe.
Nokia went WP7 because it doesn’t want to be associated with a ‘lag’ term any longer and with Microsoft it can go with things more special. Going Android means a new skin for Nokia, which Nokia wants to avoid. And just being another Android manufacturer is bad. Look at HTC’s warnings. LG is stagnant too. Only Samsung is being strong, and Motorola has backing from Google now.
With a strong launch in the Lumia 800, Nokia is back in the game. It might not sweep clean, but with Windows 8 in the mix in the near future, it has little reason to ‘throw in the towel’.
Actually, you’ll find in the UK that Samsung’s Galaxy – an Android phone – beat both the iPhone 4S and Lumia.