I didnt realize Nokia was hurting in Europe.

[shortylickens]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/05/us-nokia-prices-idUSTRE7642IL20110705

I thought their massive loss was in America.

 

[Bateluer]

Wonder if their price cuts will impact the pricing of competitor's smart phones?

 

[Mopetar]

Nokia hasn't been a major player in the US in almost a decade now. Their US market share was fairly low even before the iPhone/Android came out.

 

[akugami]

What Mopetar said. They haven't been a major player in the USA for far too long. The problem is that while Nokia's financials aren't bad right now, they're looking mighty weak considering how well Android and iOS are doing.

And as far as pricing, I doubt this will impact the pricing of their competitor's phones at all.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Who is Nokia?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Nokia never lost big in the US considering they had nothing here to begin with. They've been hurting in Europe since iOS debut.

 

[Mopetar]

Actually, they had a decent portion of the market around 2000 when they were selling those candy-bar style phones that people seemed to like for some reason.

Here's an article from early 2005 that paints a pretty good idea of how they were starting to lose their grip of what has become the dumb phone market because other companies started to move in on them.

Funny that history seems to be repeating itself in many ways.

 

[gsaldivar]

Actually, they had a decent portion of the market around 2000 when they were selling those candy-bar style phones that people seemed to like for some reason.

Here's an article from early 2005 that paints a pretty good idea of how they were starting to lose their grip of what has become the dumb phone market because other companies started to move in on them.

Unfortunately, a large part of Nokia's market share were smartphones that barely qualified as such. I think Nokia was pervasive for so long because there simply weren't many alternatives at that price level.

The competition between iOS/Android has been a windfall for consumers, forcing technology to advance rapidly in just a few years. Today, even those consumers who wouldn't normally be in the market for a smartphone find that there are a variety of low-cost fully capable devices on the market, even from bottom-tier prepaid carriers.

Now that these modern updated devices are widely available, it simply doesn't make sense to replace an old outdated Nokia phone with a "new" outdated Nokia phone (running similar software).

 

[Mopetar]

When the iPhone came out, the definition of smart phone shifted somewhat. Up until that point, Symbian very much qualified as a smart phone OS. Since then, iOS, Android, WebOS, and other more modern operating systems have stepped up the game significantly and a case could be made for distinguishing earlier smart phone operating systems from the later ones, but as Nokia's sales in the dumb phone market tumbled, strong Symbian sales were what allowed them to maintain a strong grip on the market and increase their stock value.

Otherwise, what you say is perfectly true, and the fact that the market is essentially responding just as you've written would seem to indicate that a large number of consumers tend to view devices by Nokia, RIM, and previous Windows Mobile devices, as old hat and largely not worth purchasing.