Nokia’s (NYSE:NOK) Symbian’s Swan Song

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nokiaNokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) impressed market watchers yesterday when Finnish company’s fourth-quarter report surprised Wall Street onlookers with better than expected performance.

With the good news came the inevitable and now long expected news that the Symbian OS is to be retired. The current – and popular – Nokia 808 PureView with its supermega-41-megapixel camera will be the last device produced by the handset device maker that will have the operating system.

Some 2.2 million Symbian devices were sold during the fourth-quarter of 2012 according to the report. The Lumia Windows phone handsets doubled that count at 4.4 million or over 27% of the total market sales volume of smartphones estimated at 15.9 million units.

The Greater Chinese market became a crash site for sale to Nokia largely due to the Symbian OS.  “On a year-on-year basis, the decrease in Greater China net sales was primarily due to our Smart Devices business unit, most notably lower net sales of our Symbian devices,” Nokia’s 4Q reported stated..

By refocusing market strategies and moving primary away from the Symbian devices, the company was able to save substantial marketing costs during the last quarter. “From an operating system perspective, the year-on-year decline in our Smart Devices gross margin in the fourth quarter 2012 was primarily due to a lower Symbian gross margin,” the report summarizes.

Symbian garnered attention in the early days prior to touch screen mobiles and ruled the day at the time. The attention was first gained by the Nokia 9210, then followed by QWERTY devices including the E61 and the other devices that would follow in the E-Series line. It was part of the company’s effort to raise their game against the then widely popular BlackBerry devices.

It was during this period in their product line that Nokia’s leadership in market share teetered on the brink, and the company attempted grapple it back to their control with popular high-end camera phones. It was not to be though as Android and Apple, Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) had made their move and consumer focus shifted. Leading ultimately to Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (KSE:005930) – whom Apple has long played second fiddle to in the world of mobile phone devices – dethroning Nokia as the market leader.

Still, considering the fourth quarter report yesterday, restructuring and refocusing technological development efforts, Samsung better watch their back as Nokia appears poised to fire the next salvo in the mobile device market war.

Stock Price Performance: (30-Day) Between December 24, 2012 and January 24, 2013, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) stock price increased USD $0.26 (+6.5%) USD $4.00 to $4.26. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd(KSE:005930)stock price decreased WON 21,000.00 (-1.42%) WON 1,474,000.00 to 1,453,000.00. Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock price decreased USD $69.67 (-13.39%) USD $520.17 to $450.50.


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