Nokia Extends Its Lead Over Rival Phone Makers
By DAVID PRINGLE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
A market-research firm said Nokia Corp. extended its lead over rival mobile-phone makers in the second quarter, but at a pace that is slightly below the Finnish company's own estimates.
According to figures to be released Tuesday by Anglo-U.S. research firm Strategy Analytics, Nokia's share of global cellphone shipments in the second quarter rose to 37.2% from 35.4% in the first quarter. Nokia, whose goal is to have 40% of the global market, said in July that its share in the second quarter was more than 38%.
Strategy Analytics calculated that 96.7 million cellphones were shipped globally in the second quarter, and the research firm is maintaining its forecast that 417 million phones will be shipped in 2002, up from 393 million last year.
In July, Nokia predicted the industry will ship 400 million phones in 2002, after estimating that 93 million units were shipped in the second quarter.
While the difference may not seem like much, it highlights growing confusion over whether the global market is stagnating or has started growing again.
Estimates for the size of the global market in the second quarter range from 85 million from Swedish equipment maker Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson to between 110 million and 115 million from investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.
While Nokia, Ericsson and U.S.-based Motorola Inc., the second-largest handset maker, all lowered their forecasts for the year in July, both Strategy Analytics and Gartner Inc., another market-research firm, are standing by their earlier estimates.
Some analysts believe the leading phone makers have a vested interest in talking down the size of the market.
"Clearly, the lower the total market size the more flattering the market share of the major manufacturers," said Ben Wood, a London-based analyst with Gartner. "We haven't seen anything in the second quarter that would lead us to reduce our total forecast."
Gartner said in May that it expects handset sales to end-users to exceed 420 million in 2002.
Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson all denied that they are underestimating the size of the total handset market. A spokesman for Nokia said that the company's leading position means that it "arguably has the best visibility" of the global market.
A Motorola spokeswoman said that her company's July estimate was based on the best information it had at that time, adding that tracking the market is a "very fluid, ongoing process."
Strategy Analytics calculates that Motorola's share of the total market rose to 17.3% in the second quarter from 15.6% in the first quarter. The next three biggest suppliers -- Korean Samsung Electronics Co., Siemens AG of Germany and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd., a joint venture between Ericsson and Sony Corp. -- all lost market share in the second quarter, compared with the first quarter, Strategy Analytics said. |
