Nokia Smartphones: Will half as much prove to be twice as good?
by Patrick Fairlie on December 8th, 2009
Last week, Jo Harlow head of Nokia’s Smartphone division announced that Nokia will be halving their smartphone portfolio in 2010. In the past, Nokia has always profited from having a large selection of handsets so this decision was surely made with much thought involved. But will halving the portfolio prove to be a winning strategy?
Nokia still holds the lion’s share in the smartphone sector, but their grip has slowly been slipping (their market share reduced by 6% in the previous quarter). This is mainly due to the strong performance of vendors such as Apple and RIM. Other vendors have also been improving their smartphone portfolios; with announcements from LG that they will be “investing heavily” in Smartphones, HTC launching their global advertising campaign and Samsung recently launching its Bada platform, will Nokia be left behind?
Halving the portfolio sounds like a well thought out strategy as they will be able to have more focus on each smartphone whilst reducing costs at the same time. They also announced that their Symbian OS will be updated, which should add to the user experience. Nokia is also improving its Ovi store, Nokia’s answer to Apple’s App store; this should make Nokia’s smartphone handsets more desirable. Nokia have been creating handsets since the early 90’s so they know this market better than most and these improvements are likely to keep Nokia on top.
Tags: Apple, handsets, HTC, LG, Nokia, Ovi, RIM, Samsung, smartphone
