Nokia - The Godzilla of the Global Mobile Phone Business

It's appropriate that Nokia's mobile-handset products are featured prominently in the new film Cloverfield, in which a giant monster flattens New York while gobbling up cast members along the way. That's because in the real world, Nokia has emerged as the Godzilla of the global mobile-handset business, devastating the competition and dining on their market share on its way to dominance.

In the fourth quarter of 2007, Nokia's global mobile-handset shipments amounted to 133.5 million units, up 19.5 percent from 111.7 million in the third quarter of the year, giving the Finnish wireless behemoth a 39.5 percent share of the market.

Putting Nokia's performance into perspective:

• No.1 ranked Nokia achieved the highest rate of sequential growth among the Top-5 mobile-handset suppliers in the fourth quarter of 2007, even beating the impressive 18.9 percent rise by No.4 supplier Sony Ericsson.
• Nokia's unit shipments rose by 21.8 million sequentially in the fourth quarter, 1.6 times the combined increase of 14.1 million units for the other Top-5 mobile-handset brands.
• With a 19.5 percent sequential increase in unit shipments in the fourth quarter, Nokia outgrew the global mobile-handset market's rise of 15.4 percent by 4.2 percentage points, when accounting for rounding.
• Nokia's 39.5 percent market share in the fourth quarter almost equaled the 41.9 percent combined shares of the four other Top-5 mobile-phone makers.

"With its mammoth market share and gargantuan growth, Nokia truly is the monster of the mobile-handset business," said Tina Teng, analyst, wireless communications, for iSuppli.

For the full year of 2007, Nokia shipped 437.1 million mobile phones and attained a commanding 38 percent market share. This was nearly three times the 14 percent share of Nokia's closest competitor for the year: Samsung Electronics. The Finnish company outperformed the mobile-handset industry in 2007 with 26.5 percent annual growth, compared to 16.5 percent for the entire industry.

To explain Nokia's success, Teng cited the company's sales leadership in most global regions and its dominant position in shipments of mobile handsets using 3G W-CDMA technology.

American exceptionalism
While Nokia appears to be invincible, the mobile-phone goliath still faces some challenges.

"Nokia has acknowledged its relatively weak position in CDMA technology - and the fact it doesn't dominate the North American market," Teng said. "However, the company is planning on introducing new appealing models for the U.S. market and is engaging in a more active marketing campaign in North America in 2008, which was kicked off by the ubiquitous product placement in the movie Cloverfield."
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