News that iPhone and Android smartphones are outselling Nokia devices in the Nordic countries will only add to the company's troubles given that its CEO, Stephen Elop, is expected to announce a significant drop in its fourth-quarter profits Thursday.
According to one leading distributor, 20:20 Mobile, which ships mobile devices to 4,000 stores in Nordic countries, demand for Apple's iPhone and Google's Android smartphones is surging in the region.
"Almost all the smartphones we sell nowadays are Apple and Android - Nokia phones just don't sell," Fredrik Rudberg, 20:20 Mobile Sweden's managing director, told the Swedish Wire. However, he admitted that Nokia's N8 sold very well right after the launch in Sweden and Norway, "but Nokia doesn't have other smartphones in the higher price range."
Apple's iPhone is thought to have gained a 14 per cent share of the Swedish smartphone market last year, while Android-based handsets achieved around 25 per cent. Rudberg confirmed that Apple's share of t he Finnish smartphone market was lower than in Sweden, but was increasing.
Still, not all is dire for Nokia. "I think the N8 did extremely well in markets like Brazil and India, and Vodafone, T-Mobile and Orange put marketing support behind Nokia for the Christmas promotions because they had some fresh value devices out," Tero Kuittinen, an analyst with MKM Partners, told Bloomberg. "The fear is that this bounce won't last very long."
For more:
- see this Swedish Wire article
- see this Bloomberg article
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