Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderd...ims-estimates/

“Our analysis of the handset market value suggests Nokia’s problems are mostly self-inflicted rather than cyclical,” he writes, while adding that “rising competition threatens Nokia’s 55% mid-end smartphone share,” and noting that “a high-end recovery is unlikely in the next 12 months.”

“A lack of compelling new high-end products and ongoing mid-end smartphone share loss means risk-reward is not compelling,”

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IMHO Nokia was never under so much criticism than in the past 2 years, after iPhone launched and RIM got a good share of high end smartphones. And this criticism is not on one review site, but on many, and also some of this criticism is simply demolishing and demoralizing for Nokia. I will add to this that most of this destructive criticism came from USA, and there are reasons for this like "buy American" which is had in hand with avoid European Nokia and an American fanaticism and self over consideration where simple products with no real value or no better value than the competition are just popular like crazy (examples like "Sprite" pop drinks in general, coffee from Starbucks , fries and hamburgers from McDonalds, all of these products are just junk food, un healthy and with nothing special, but simply popular like crazy).

When will be N900 out to stop these critics that say Nokia did not prove in the high-end segment of the smarthphones?

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

whats really funny is that RIM is canadian...

and sadly, much of the english language tech press online is US focused, and the rest seems to more often then not parrot the US sources.

to bad i cant read german or french so i can tell if they to have this issue of parroting...

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

If I believed in Nokia I could probably make some money in stocks, like I did with Ford, which I recently quadrupled. ($2 a share to $8 a share) But I don't.

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

Sounds like someone at Goldman wants to start buying NOK.

I learned my lesson paying attention to analyst recommendations years ago. I know that there's a "Chinese wall" between the analyst desk and the trader floor, but I've seen too many coincidences over the years...

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

and RIM is one of the few that still manufacture a meaningful percentage of their handheld communications devices in US or Canada. Nothing new here as to the online tech press being mostly US based.

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

That may be your opinion, but there was equally vociferous criticism when the Motorola RAZR dominated its demographic. Nokia stock took a beating-- I bought low, held, and sold for more than twice my purchase price.

I'm doing it again. ;)

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

I could joke about this (after all, my dad was Canadian) but the fact is they get the US. They may not understand or agree with us, but they get us. ;)

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

Yes, there is not much difference between Canadians and much of the US (except for the French Canadians in Quebec).

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

The RAZR is the worst phone I've ever owned. The software sucked big time. I gave mine away while still in contract!

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

However, Textrat's point remains that I remember^ that well... It also fits in with my criticism of folks knee jerk reaction to the iPhones success as a basis in the design of competing handsets.

You can not judge acceptance of all the iPhones features based on just sales numbers. Like the Razr many bought it because it was the coolest phone on the market at the time. Also like the Razr some will never use all of its features anyway.

The Razr raised the expectation of the price that North American customers were willing to pay for a phone. The Razr also raised the expectation of service providers for sales for a single model of handset.
The thing is, those North American sales came with a 2 year service contract from those providers. At the time some thought the Razor so dang cool that they paid $200 early termination fees to their existing carriers to jump ship because they didn't offer the thing. This made its cost of ownership for some even higher but it added more sales within a specific time "window", if you will.

When the honeymoon was over and the glow of excitement wore off Razr owners were left with just a phone and about 18 months left on a service providers contract. :eek:

Apple released the iPhone just about the time those first contacts expired. I suspect a bell curve graph of both Razr and iPhone sales would line up pretty closely... both sales windows opening and closing two years apart. Timing is everything. :cool:

***

IMHO, if Nokia wants to be a player in the North American Market they need to:

1. Raise some expectations.

2. Have a product ready for market when that next window of sales opens.

3. Pay no attention to analysts opinion in this market.
BTW, some of these same analysts were played by Tim Donahue when he pumped, and then dumped Nextel's stock on Sprint.

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

Were you an early adopter? I find the latest firmware very solid, but it did take a while to get here. I think I've had my RAZR about three years now and it's evolved nicely in my opinion.

This is one of these threads where I'm not sorry for being off topic. :)

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

@YoDude:

I don't know much about the RAZR... but did it have:

- Yearly OS update with significant new features?
- Appstore?
- Accessories for these unique markets: health & medication, education, fitness, navigation, retail pos, and many more.

I think your analysis is incomplete. Yes, the market is fickle.. and trends do come and go, but don't underestimate nor misunderstand what's happening and hope you can get the best.

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

Not correct. iphone products are still making plenty of money two years later.

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

They gave me a RAZR, then a SLVR. None of those phones lasted more than a day with me. I hated it immensely.

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

Sure, we're pretty much the same, except for our totally different health care systems, legal systems, educational standards, political leanings, religious leanings, approach to multiculturalism, spellings of the English language... :D

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

Eh, you're just cold Californians. :p

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

should add better beer while you're at it. but we're talking tech here - not politics. :)

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

Okay, as tech goes, you are correct - similar standards (CDMA, strange 3G), similar prices/penetration, etc.

Great, now I'm thinking about beer. Gotta go. :)

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

Understood, and that's where the "raise expectations" part comes in.

The iPhone raised the expectations of users and captured customer loyalty in the process. It also raised the expectations of the industry with regards to the amount of money users will spend for apps by making the iTunes experience as easy and trouble free as it has. However, studying the cycles of newly added subscriptions and provider TOS in North America is/was just as important to Apple, or any other manufacturer imho.

...and btw, we are all entitled to our opinions. However, starting off a reply stating that an opinion is not correct without providing supporting information or at the very least asking for some clarification, sometimes rubs people the wrong way and leads to flame wars. :)

It didn't hurt my feelings any but then again, we all know each other here.:D I'm just guessing now but, in the next few months we could be seeing quite a few new members who may react differently.
http://www.clicksmilies.com/auswahl/ernaehrung004.gif

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

whether

"a bell curve graph of both Razr and iPhone sales would line up pretty closely... both sales windows opening and closing two years apart."

is a factual matter, not an opinion

You should have been happy all I did was correct the mistake for the benefit of others. iphone continues to be a huge runaway sales success in the mobile industry and I could have poked fun at you for being soooo wrong and so ignorant, but I didn't...

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

You omitted "I suspect " from the quote you are using. :)

The correct quote is:
... my understanding of a bell curve is that it represents the normal distribution of a trait within a population. In this case the trait would be the occurrence of sales over time and not overall sales volume. The market we were talking about was North America and not world wide.
Of course the iPhone has outsold the RZR but I'm not comparing overall sales. Perhaps what you are fixating on is my use of the term "sales window closing". I'm not saying that to indicate sales are over for either phone, rather that in both cases sales rates are no longer increasing and the mean rate of sales has been established in the North American market.

***

My happiness is not regulated by what you choose to post. However my reply was not a rebuttal to one of your posts so your desire to find "me soooo wrong and so ignorant" without even asking for clarification indicates to me that you have some unresolved issue. Entertaining the notion to poke fun at some one in a public forum is kind of childish don't you think? << (purely rhetorical... at this point I really don't care what you think on this subject.) :)

Re: Nokia downgraded to neutral and American Way
 

Although I don't argue that we Americans are often like lemmings running over the cliff after what is perceived as the newest and best, I strongly disagree that xenophobia has much of anything to do with it. Don't base your opinion of Americans on comments made by our celebrities in the foreign press or through repeated viewings of the documentary "Supersize Me". Besides, I like McDonalds! Sometimes.

The "buy American" movement doesn't tend to extend too far into electronics. There is a general feeling that that battle was fought and lost long ago!

Sad news about Nokia though. I really like playing with my co-workers' iPhones but I don't want them to dominate. I want free enterprise!