While high-end smartphones are helping Apple break records, the same segment of the industry is breaking hearts for rival vendor Nokia.
Apple was forced to apologise for a technological meltdown caused by the sheer volume of demand for its iPhone 4 when preorders began earlier this week. The company and its various partners took orders for more than 600,000 new iPhones on Tuesday, the highest number Apple has ever reached in a single day, bringing Websites and ordering systems to their knees.
The company said it was sorry to all of those who had failed to place their order. "We... hope that they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4 is in stock", a statement from Apple read.
The vendor probably doesn't have too many worries on that score. Experience suggests that Apple's most ardent fans will go to any lengths to get their hands on its latest shiny toy.
The same cannot be said for poor old Nokia, though. The Finnish vendor on Wednesday lowered its second-quarter guidance, saying it expects sales and gross margins at its devices business to come in lower than previously forecast, and said its mobile device market share will fall this year. Nokia attributed its profit warning to "multiple factors", including "the competitive environment, particularly at the high-end of the market".
"All is not well at Nokia," commented Gavin Byrne, senior analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media. Byrne went on to note that 2010 is a crunch year for the world's biggest handset maker, one in which it must improve its performance in the smartphone space. "This can only be achieved if the company successfully delivers meaningful innovation that will at least match the user experience offered by its competitors," he said.
The message was the same from Gartner vice president Nick Jones, who also warned that 2010 is a critical year for Nokia, listing its smartphone portfolio among "things [that] have to be fixed".
"This is an implicit statement that the Symbian user experience won't be fixed this year, and Meego won't arrive in time to make a difference in 2010 either," Jones said.
Incidentally, speaking to Total Telecom this week, mobile synchronisation specialist Funambol described Symbian as "the Titanic of mobile operating systems", warning that Nokia faces a huge challenge in the move to open source, one that could cost it the smartphone race.
"I suspect the investors are running out of patience and will want to hold someone accountable," said Gartner's Jones, of Nokia. "That makes me wonder if the recent re-org may not be the last of the executive changes we'll see in 2010," he said.
So, will heads roll at Nokia? Drop us a line or add a comment and let us know your thoughts.
Meanwhile, the fierce competition Nokia is facing only looks set to intensify.
South Korea's Samsung this week raised its 2010 smartphone sales target, according to a report in the local press. The vendor aims to shift 20 million units this year, 2 million more than it previously forecast, as it pushes more aggressively into Europe.
And on Thursday Japanese electronics makers Fujitsu and Toshiba announced that they will merge their mobile phone operations, a move that will enable them to compete better with leading domestic player Sharp and overseas handset vendors.
However, one mobile operator this week highlighted that the future is not all about handsets.
Sprint Nextel shared its plans to open a machine-to-machine collaboration centre in the San Francisco area, and Danny Bowman, president of Sprint's integrated solutions group, spoke out on the promise of the connected devices space.
In Europe, Sweden's TeliaSonera rolled out the latest phase of its LTE network, revealing that LTE services will be available in Visby, on the island of Gotland, by the end of this month.
And in what could be seen as another nail in the WiMAX coffin, one of the U.K.'s two nationwide WiMAX licensees, Daisy Group, this week sold its spectrum to the other, PCCW's UK Broadband, announcing that it was pulling out of the WiMAX business to focus on its core unified communications services.
In Pakistan it was all about 3G. The government is pushing ahead with plans to award licences despite serious doubts over the business case for the technology in such a low-ARPU, high-competition market.
In other news this week, Nokia Siemens Networks shared its solution to congestion and signalling load problems on mobile data networks; BT updated its strategy for rolling out fibre to London homes; the Kosovo government launched the process to privatise Post and Telecom, aiming to raise up to €800 million; Qualcomm found itself on the receiving end of a new EU antitrust investigation following allegations of anticompetitive practices; and Switzerland's second-largest telecoms operator Sunrise appointed a new CEO.
So, there you have it: an entire Friday Review with no mention of the word 'football'. That's quite an achievement given the proliferation of red and white and general air of excitement in the Total Telecom office today!
Labels: Apple , Nokia
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