Nokia Corp. (NOK), the beleaguered mobile handset developer, lost another jewel from its crown. According to a recent Gartner report, Nokia conceded its leadership position in the global smartphone market in the third quarter of fiscal 2011. In the previous quarter, Samsung Electronics of South Korea sold nearly 24 million smartphones, overtaking the number one position from Nokia, which sold around 19.5 million of smartphones.
Nokia is facing serious problems in the global smartphone markets. Smartphones are generally characterized by very powerful operating system capable of supporting varieties of services and applications. The Symbian software has gradually lost charm among mobile phone users and is recognized as an out-of-date technology. Symbian is significantly lagging behind iOS of Apple Inc. (AAPL) used in it s legendary iPhones and Android OS of Google Inc. (GOOG). Samsung uses Android software as the operating system of its smartphones.
Despite this, according to Gartner, Nokia still commands global leadership for combined mobile handsets (including smartphones and basic mobile phones). Nokia at present enjoys 23.9% of global market share, down from 28.2% in the year-ago quarter but way ahead of its nearest rival Samsung, which controls 17.8% market share currently. In fact, in the third quarter of 2011, Nokia surprisingly swung to a profit primarily attributable to better-than-expected sales of its basic mobile phones. Its dual sim-card phones did exceptionally well in India.
In order to recover its lost glory in the lucrative smartphone segment, Nokia has just launched its first Windows Phone 7-based smartphone Lumia 800 in the U.K. This operating system is developed by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT). Much of Nokia’s future will depend on its success of Windows based smartphones. Management also hinted that its next-generation tablets based on upcoming Windows 8 software is expected to be released by June 2012.
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