Samsung battles Nokia in smartphones

Samsung is counting on snazzy new products, innovative marketing and vaulting ambition to close the gap on rival Nokia in this lucrative segment.

You might consider him cocky or overly ambitious. But Ranjit Yadav, Samsung India country head of mobile and IT makes no bones of his company’s ambition: “We want to be the number one smart phone player in the country. Our target is to grab 40 per cent market share by the end of this year”.

The new front in the mobile phone wars

The future for companies like Nokia and Motorola, once the great pioneers of the mobile phone industry, has been bleak for some time. The likes of Apple and RIM have eaten away at their share of the high-end smartphone market for several years now, while cheaper Asian manufacturers will soon do the same in the sub-$200 space. We have long argued there is no way back; the adapt or die moment has passed.

Google knows this, yet it is still shelling out $12.5bn on Motorola Mobility. In reality, this deal has very little to do with the US handset maker’s mobile phones, which are frankly pretty terrible. If Google had wanted a device manufacturer it would have plumped for something better like Taiwan’s HTC.

Nokia Jumps as Google-Motorola Deal May Move Handset Makers to Microsoft

Nokia Oyj (NOK1V), the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones by volume, climbed the most in 1 1/2 years in Helsinki trading after Google Inc. (GOOG) agreed to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for about $12.5 billion.

Google, whose Android software powers handsets made by Motorola Mobility and manufacturers including Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. (066570), will win wireless patents it needs to compete against Apple Inc.’s iPhone. The linkup may shift some Android phone manufacturers away from Google to consider platforms such as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s Windows Phone, which was adopted by Nokia this year, said Lee Simpson, an analyst at Jefferies International in London.

Some of us care that Nokia is taking Symbian away

Rachel posted yesterday on the news that Nokia is dropping Symbian and Series 40 phones from the North American market. While most people likely won’t care there are still a few of us who loved to use these Nokia smartphones and feature phones because they still have a lot to offer and had innovations not seen on smartphones today.

Nokia, still a market leader

According to the latest quarterly report issued by research firm IDC (International Data Corporation), the global mobile phone market grew by 11.3% year over year, as in second quarter of 2011 were delivered, worldwide, 365.4 million units – compared with 328.4 million units shipped in the second quarter of 2010.

But the figures were below predictions of the company, aimed at an increase of 13.3% for Q2 – lower than the growth of 16.8% recorded in 2011.

Nokia Remains World's First Maker of Smartphones

The worldwide mobile phone market grew 11.3% year over year in the second quarter of 2011, despite a weaker feature phone market, which declined for the first time since Q3 2009. Nokia Corp. remained the top maker of mobile phone despite of major losses of the market of smartphones.

According to the International Data Corp. (IDC), vendors shipped 365.4 million units in Q2 2011 compared to 328.4 million units in the second quarter of 2010. The 11.3% growth was lower than IDC's forecast of 13.3% for the quarter and was also below the 16.8% growth in Q1 2011.