People disconnecting Nokia; Share slips

Helsinki, May 20: According to a latest market research study, world's largest mobile phone maker Nokia has been losing its shares in the handset market.

The research conducted by technology research group Gartner found that Nokia's share in mobile phone market dropped to 25 percent in the first quarter of 2011. Nokia shares slipped from 30.6 percent in 2010 first quarter to 25 per cent in 2011. It is Nokia's lowest percentage since 1997.

Earlier, in its first 2011 quarterly report, Nokia claimed that it has a market share of 29 percent, down from 33 percent in the first quarter of 2010.

According to Gartner report, Nokia still leads ahead of Samsung in the second-place, which holds a market share of 16 per cent. LG bagged the third spot with 5.6 percent and iPhone maker Apple settled at fourth with 3.9 per cent followed by BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) with 3.0 percent.

Nokia, which had bagged around 40 percent market share in 2008, is confronting with its rival Google and Apple in mobile market. Google's Android smartphones and Apple's iOS devices are more preferred over Nokia smartphones.

Planning to regain its losing shares, recently Nokia announced its alliance with computer giant Microsoft to make Windows Phone 7 as the primary operating system for Nokia smartphones. Nokia dumped the Symbian and MeeGo platforms to attract more users. Nokia WP7 smartphone will be launched in the first quarter of 2012.

Gartner's report also revealed that smartphones accounted for 23.6 per cent of overall sales in the first quarter of 2011, an increase of 85 per cent year-on-year. Furthermore, worldwide mobile phone sales increased by 19 per cent year-on-year, totaling 427.8 million units sold in 2011 first quarter.

Earlier, a similar study dubbed as IDC Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker study found that Nokia's market share decreased to 29.2 percent in 2011 first quarter from 34.7 percent in the first quarter of 2010.

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