Samsung, the south korean technology giant, has overtaken Finnish Nokia (or Finlands answer to American Research in Motion) as the world’s largest mobile phone maker. Nokia took the top spot from Motorola in 1998, but early this year Samsung shipped 93 million phones compared to almost 83 million.
It’s about time! I hear you say. Well yeh that’s what I thought – Nokia are hardly the ubiquitous phone company that they once were (I’m talkin’ Matrix, I’m talkin Neo, and I’m talkin’ the Nokia 8110). The time when digitalised grand vals rung out in the streets proudly as it’s national anthem, and when apple and phone – software and hardware – didn’t exactly meet, seems oh so log ago.
It’s a surprise they’re even second! Here in Britian, Nokia’s are known nostalgically as them ancient bricks that you could play snakes and ladders on. Fundamentally though, like all phone companies at the time, they just seemed to be caught napping by Apple and the software revolution it would bring with them. It wasn’t like they didn’t see it coming – the ipod touch was the iphone without phone functionality – everyone else predicted it, it was more of the matter of price. Like Microsofts Steve Ballmer once notoriously blurted out “500 DOLLARS FOR A PHONE!!!”, phone companies thought although “neat” the iphone would just be too damned expensive for the general consumer. Well they were wrong… all of them… RIM with their Blackberry… wrong… Samsung… Sony-ericson… etc. To misquote the great Steve Jobs “They are hardware companies, we are a software company, that is why we will win”.
The biggest difference between Nokia and Samsung, and perhaps the most telling, is that Samsung reacted swiftly, effectively and impressively… they copied the iphone entirely! Adopting Google’s Android os. Nokia on the other hand didn’t wake up from their nap and are paying for it accordingly. They have now however woke up and smelt the apples, vying for some sweet smartphone market pie of there own, with their new Lumia phone. To run their operating system they have some what controversially teamed up with Microsoft’s and it’s new operating system Mango, shunning OS number 2 Android. Probably for differentiation. Critics are generally positive. Steve Wozniak in fact (The Lennon to Steve Jobs’ Mccarteny, at Apple in the early days) recently expressed his praise for it in the most flattering way possible, accusing Microsoft of poaching Apple staff! Although stating clearly he still of course prefers the iphone… of course. I personally think it’s live tiles system make Apples’ ios (and everyone else’s android) look rather old fashioned to be honest. Problem is, people just aren’t buying them.
Ultimately though is this landmark a case of Samsung’s triumphant success, or Nokia’s disastrous demise? Well it’s both. But I think everyone will agree Nokia have an uphill battle to regain it’s crown as king of mobile.
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