It won’t be a nice day to go to work at Motorola (MOT), Samsung, or Sony Ericsson. Their larger competitor, Nokia (NOK) said it sold 19% fewer phones in the first quarter than it did in the same period a year ago. Total units shipped dropped to 93.2 million.
The company said first-quarter net income fell 82% to 122 million euros. Revenue collapsed 27% to 9.3 billion euros.
While companies like Motorola (MOT) will suffer because of the trend of falling handset sales across the globe that Nokia is signaling, the questions is whether it will spread to the smartphone businesses, particularly Apple (AAPL) and RIM (RIM). While Nokia’s line up of handsets is not weighted heavily with smartphones because it has 40% of the global mobile phone market, it is a reasonable proxy for both the high end and the low end of the industry.
There has been a great deal of concern about whether the iPhone, Blackberry, and new Palm (PALM) Pre can keep strong sales momentum through the year. Now, it looks like that may be a problem.
Showing posts with label Sales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sales. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Nokia Sees 10% Drop in 2009 Mobile Phone Sales
Following in the footsteps of LG and Sony Ericsson, Nokia today reported a poor performance for the fourth quarter of 2008, for which it blamed the global economic downturn. Handset sales during the latest three-month period were 113.1 million, down 15.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 and 4 percent lower than third-quarter 2008 sales of 117.8 million units. Nokia also lost 1 percent market share during the quarter. And not only did they sell fewer phones, they sold them cheaply; Nokia’s average selling price for a handset declined to 71 euros from 83 euros.
But forget all that, for the worst is yet to come. Nokia is forecasting a 10 percent decline in global handset sales — not just for the company but for the entire industry. This is not a good sign for anyone making a living by selling to the mobile industry, especially chipmakers like Texas Instruments.
Nokia had previously forecast a 5 percent decline in sales, so things are clearly a lot worse than anyone thought. Sales are going to be swimming with the fishes for the first half of the year, Nokia indicates, though things might get marginally better in the second half of 2009.
But forget all that, for the worst is yet to come. Nokia is forecasting a 10 percent decline in global handset sales — not just for the company but for the entire industry. This is not a good sign for anyone making a living by selling to the mobile industry, especially chipmakers like Texas Instruments.
Nokia had previously forecast a 5 percent decline in sales, so things are clearly a lot worse than anyone thought. Sales are going to be swimming with the fishes for the first half of the year, Nokia indicates, though things might get marginally better in the second half of 2009.