Nokia and the Koreans Lifting Boats: (Share Numbers, Smartphones, and the Weak Won)
For lack of another number it looks like ABI Research is using the same denominator that I am in calculating OEMs Share: i.e. Nokia's estimated 269 million units global sales.
>> Nokia, LG, Samsung Help Boost Handset Industry, Report Says
Michelle Maisto
2009-07-24
tinyurl.com
ABI Research reports that 269 million handsets shipped in the second quarter of 2009, which “bodes well” for the second half the year. Nokia, LG and Samsung all showed market share growth, while Sony-Ericsson, Motorola and RIM saw contractions. ... <snip> ...
... The figure bodes well for the second half of 2009, according to Jake Saunders, ABI Research’s vice president of forecasting. “Shipments should build sequentially in a constructive manner with [the fourth quarter of 2009] potentially returning the industry to better sales form,” said Saunders in a statement.
Nokia exceeded expectations for the quarter, reporting smartphone sales of 16.9 million units for the second quarter, compared to 13.7 million units in the first quarter of 2009. Its market share rose to 38.3 percent, which ABI describes in the statement as a “remarkable swing in fortunes.” Samsung, which boosted its market share by 1.45 percent to a total of 19.4 percent, and LG, which grew 2.2 percentage points to 11.1 percent, both carried out refreshes of their smartphone lines and performed “particularly well,” according to ABI.
[Edit: LG really didn't have much of any smartphone presence to refresh. They have been into rouch screen feature phones -IC -]
“It is well documented that smartphones are proving to be one of the main engines of growth, but they are not just benefiting the Tier 1 players,” said Kevin Burden, ABI practice director, in the statement. “A number of Tier 3 vendors are also making headway in a competitive market, including Apple and HTC but also vendors such as Huawei and ZTE. While a consolidation is widely expected in the industry, it will not be happening in 2009.”
Pressures to consolidate, said ABI, are coming from a tighter integration between hardware, operating system and applications development. The average selling price for smartphones is higher than the overall average, and research and development price tags, explained ABI, “can only go up.”
ABI reported that it is revising its forecast 2009 contraction from negative 8.1 percent, or 1.11 billion, to negative 7.5 percent. ###
The Weak Won ...
Moon Ihlwan, Seoul bureau chief at BusinessWeek commented on the Weak Won Tailwind ..
Help from a Weak Won: The high-end focus and aggressive marketing paid off, enabling Samsung to increase the amount of profit it makes per TV. ... <snip> ... Samsung is aided by the weak Korean won, which has lost about a quarter of its value against the dollar in the past 18 months. By contrast, Japanese rivals' competitiveness is suffering due to the strength of the yen.
While SA may not have numbers out yet Moon added ...
tinyurl.com
Samsung's mobile-phone business, which generated $800 million in earnings, is another bright spot. The world's second-largest handset vendor after Nokia (NOK), Samsung sold 52.3 million phones in the second quarter, an increase of 14% from the previous quarter. That was enough to give Samsung a global market share in mobile phones of 20%, compared with 16.7% in 2008 and 11.3% in 2006, according to market researcher Strategy Analytics. Remarkably, Samsung executives are confident the company will keep snatching market share, with troubled rivals such as Motorola (MOT) and Sony Ericsson the likely losers. Kim Hyong Do, vice-president at Samsung's telecom unit, expects his company to achieve its target of selling more than 200 million handsets this year, even though for the overall industry Strategy Analytics forecasts a 10% drop from last year's 1.2 billion phones. "With the scheduled launch of [new] flagship models such as Jet, Galaxy, and Omnia II in the second half of this year, we expect a steady market share growth," says Kim.
- Eric - |
