Strategy - How Nokia was overtaken by Apple and Samsung

I like this short article from Channel 4 News which examines how Nokia’s competitive position has been severely weakened by the success of firms like Apple and Nokia.

The relatively success and failure of firms like Apple, Nokia, Samsung, Sony & others is a fruitful source of essay evidence for students and there are some good-sized nuggets in the article, including:

Nokia’s financial position appears to be worsening; it is expecting higher than expected losses for the first half of 2012 - the Stephen Elop-led turnaround is taking longer than expected.

Samsung has now overtaken Nokia as the overall market leader in the global mobile phone market

Nokia’s market share of the total mobile phone market has fallen from 40% in 2007 to just 23% estimated for 2012

Apple and Samsung account for 50% of smartphones sold currently; Nokia has just a 12% share of the smartphone segment

Economies of scale are less strategically important in the mobile phone market than they used to be. Now, it is more about adding value

Nokia has accelerated the process of new product development, but it is playing catchup (like Sony). Apple’s pace and track record of innovation is much stronger

A nice stat for essays:

“Nokia sold a respectable one million Lumia 800 phones in the last quarter of 2011 - but Apple sold 1 million iPhone 4s models in one day after its release.

Branding is still hugely important in the mobile phone market: Apple and Samsung have been much better at building brand value through publicity and sponsorship