Starting off (in the smartphone world) with Series 60 (on Symbian) handsets, transitioning through Windows Phone 7.x phones, and ending up on Android, LG has officially closed its Mobile division, with the short statement quoted below. It's been a rocky road for LG, but even back in the mid 2000s at the Symbian shows, I never really felt their heart was in it, at least in terms of selling to - and supporting - the West. Some thoughts and a few looks back below.
Long time AAS readers will remember the Nokia N93, a unique multi-form factor smartphone with a barrel camera that included a genuine continuous 1-3x zoom lens system. It worked superbly, at least in good light, with the caveat that the reduced aperture when zoomed meant that evening and night shots suffered. Partly because of this, Nokia (and then the world) moved to computational photography and smart cropping into large, high megapixel sensors in order to try and zoom without the same degree of aperture loss, cuminating in 2012's Nokia 808 and 2013's Lumia 1020. But now comes news that a continuous zoom lens system may be making a come back, 14 years on from the N93...
We knew this was coming, of course. The Nokia Store (for Symbian, etc.) closed for new business/apps well over a year ago and we knew that a deal had been struck with Opera for the latter to keep it going in some form. The recent Store update contained the necessary redirect code and now the button has been pushed by Microsoft to redirect any use of the on-device Nokia Store application to the Opera web site/store.
We knew this day would come, but didn't think it would happen so soon. After January 1st, 2014, Nokia is no longer accepting either new applications or updates for existing apps into the Nokia Store. The email, sent out to all developers today, is quoted below, but my first impression is that the refusal to allow app updates is something of a contravention of Nokia's stated intent to "support Symbian until 2016". After all, without the facility to update apps to maintain compatibility with the wider world and to respond to security issues and bugs, the Symbian ecosystem is rather left in the lurch.
The news that Nokia just handed over its one and a half billionth Series 40 phone was interesting - and impressive - and got me thinking and fact-checking. Just how many Symbian-powered smartphones have been sold, in total, i.e. in the last decade? Turns out it's now well over 500 million, i.e. over half a billion Symbian smartphones have already been sold and are... out there in the world somewhere. Some thoughts below.
Thanks to a reminder from WebProNews, it's instructive to look again at the smartphone world via StatCounter, a pro service embedded on many web sites which tracks the browser and OS used to access them. And, reflecting the still enormous installed base of Symbian-powered smartphones across the world, Symbian still (for web access, at least) still dominates the world, at 31%. The full graph is below, along with some comments.
Nokia's Ovi Store has reached the 9 million downloads a day milestone and is continuing to grow. This follows on from June's announcement that Ovi Store was averaging more than 6 million downloads a day and the 7.62 million mark from last month. The 9 million downloads a day rate annualises to 3.29 billion downloads a year (275 million a month). In addition, AAS' own tracking now shows that Ovi Store has now passed the 2 billion cumulative downloads mark.
Nokia has released its Q2 2011 results, reporting an operating loss of -€487 million, with net sales of €9.275 billion (down 7% YoY). Nokia's Devices and Services division's losses were -€247 million. Margins in devices and services were -4.5% (down 14% YoY and down 14.2% QoQ). However, non-IFRS operating profit was €391 million (down 41% YoY and down 44% QoQ), with Devices and Services non-IFRS profit at €369 million, and margins at 6.7%. Total smartphone device sales were 16.7 million, compared with 24 million units in Q2 2010 (down 34% YoY) and 25.2 million units in Q1 2011 (down 31%, QoQ).
Synchronica, a UK based company that provides mobile messaging solution, is to acquire Nokia's operator branded messaging business. This business provides a number of American operators with branded email and IM applications and services. In addition, under a professional services contract (outsourcing), Synchronica will take over the development of the related Series 40 client software and the messaging gateway, which is used by both Series 40 and Symbian devices.
Nokia announcedtoday that it will change its service branding from Ovi to Nokia. This will see the services change from Ovi Service to Nokia Service. For example, Ovi Maps to Nokia Maps. The transition will begin in July and is expected to be completed by the end of 2012 and Nokia says that the rebrand will have no impact on planned updates and improvements to the services.
At its Strategy and Financial Briefing event today in London, Nokia has outlined its "new strategic direction, including changes in leadership and operational structure to accelerate the company's speed of execution in a dynamic competitive environment". Some more quotes below, but in short this means a reorganisation into "Smart Devices" and "Mobile Phones", and adding a new OS platform to its portfolio, with Windows Phone becoming Nokia's "primary smartphone platform" and Symbian becoming "a franchise platform, leveraging previous investments to harvest additional value". More below, and more through the day, of course. Rafe's on the ground, see the other Coveritlive news item.
At a Strategy and Financial Briefing, which takes place at 10 am GMT on February 11th Nokia's CEO, Stephen Elop, is expected to outline his vision for the future strategy of the company. Rafe will be reporting live from Intercontinental Park Lane Hotel, London, where the event is taking place. You can follow our live coverage using this story or via our Twitter accounts (@aas and @allaboutmeego).
Nokia has released its Q4 2010 results, reporting an operating profit of €884 million (down 23% Year-on-Year), with net sales of €12.65 billion (up 6% YoY). Nokia's device and service division's profits were €1090 million, up 10% from Q3. Margins in devices and services were 11.3% (down 4.1% YoY and up 0.9% QoQ).
Nokia sold more than 5 million Symbian^3 devices. Total converged devices sales (mainly Symbian-powered smartphones) were up, at 28.3 million, compared with 20.8 million units in Q3 2009 (up 36% YoY) and compared with 26.5 million units in Q3 2010 (up 7%, QoQ). Worldwide smartphone market share was 31%, down 6% sequentially and 9% year on year, due to the overall smartphone market growth, estimated up by a huge 63% YoY. [Post updated with extra charts and quotes]
As part of the Symbian Foundation's transition to a licensing only organisation the majority of the Symbian Foundation websites closed today. Together with the departure of the majority of the remaining staff, today marks the end of major operations by the Symbian Foundation. Of course, the Symbian platform will continue under the guidance of Nokia, who have committed to make the future development of the platform available via an alternative 'direct and open model'. Some comments below.
Nokia has released their Q3 2010 results, reporting an operating profit of €529 million, with net sales of €10.3 billion. Nokia's device and service division's profits were €807 million, up 3% year on year. Margins in devices and services were 10.5% (down 0.9% YoY and up 0.9% QoQ). The figures beat market expectations. Converged devices sales (smartphones) were significantly up, at 26.5 million, compared with 16.4 million units in Q3 2009 (up 61% YoY) and compared with 24 million units in Q2 2010 (up 10%, QoQ). Worldwide smartphone market share was 38%, down 3% sequentially but up 2% year on year.
