Nokia May Have iPhone Killer For European Market

By Adario Strange

Another “can anything beat the iPhone?” story popped up today in The Wall Street Journal (registration required). The story runs down all the usual smart phone suspects offering a nice comparison chart featuring the iPhone, the Nokia N95, the Samsung UpStage, and the beautiful LG Prada touch phone.

But you’ll have to skip all the way down the end of the article to find one of the most surprising assertions regarding the iPhone we’ve read to date. Industry analyst Avi Greengart said, “N95 has everything that the iPhone has. It could have been an iPhone killer. In Europe, it may well be.”

Finally, someone (other than John Dvorak) is staking their expert cred betting against the iPhone. European consumers are famously wary of following over-hyped trends from the U.S., so Greengart may be on the right track. Nevertheless, the real battleground for the iPhone will be Asia, where many cellular handset trends begin and end. If the iPhone can carve out a significant niche in Asia in 2008, they can win over the entire planet.