Feature phone collapse and Android hurt Nokia in Q2 while Chinese vendors capitalize

NEW YORK, USA: Whether you subscribe to sell-in statistics (shipments) or sell-through (sold in-store) statistics, there simply are not enough of them to bury the fact that Nokia had a devastating Q2; falling from first to third place in smartphones does not do justice to the level of damage Nokia suffered.

While the overall handset market was essentially flat from Q1 to Q2 (0.5 percent growth), Nokia watched China-based ZTE and Huawei eat its lunch at both the high and low ends of the market, growing 28.9 percent and 26.3 percent QoQ, respectively, in overall handsets sales.

“Despite being the number one OEM for more than a decade, this quarter shows Nokia’s position in the top five is the one most at risk,” says Kevin Burden, vice president and practice director, mobile devices.

Nokia’s 88.5 million handsets ‘sold-in’ during Q2 are 20 million units less than it sold in its previous quarter. It equates to 7.5 million fewer smartphones and 12.5 million fewer feature phones shipped for a crushing 18.4 percent sequential drop for the former leader of the mobile device industry.

Nokia’s share of smartphone shipments into the channel was halved over the past year and it lost a third of its market share in Q2 alone. Although Nokia remains the top overall handset manufacturer with 24.6 percent of the 359.7 million mobile phones shipped in Q2, Apple now leads in smartphones with 20.3 million iPhones shipped, with Samsung in second with 18.7 million.

Jake Saunders, VP of forecasting, says, “Nokia’s only response has been to lower handset prices, cut profitability and personnel, and blame an overstocked channel as its shipments to China dropped 51 percent in Q2.”

Nokia’s financials and inventory levels indicate a lack of demand in a number of regional markets was the problem, not overstock. In Nokia’s European home field, shipments dropped 21 percent, as more nimble players like HTC (12.1 million) and LG (24.8 million) used Android to capture Symbian customers leaping off the burning platform before Nokia opens its Windows Phone strategy.