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Nok up and Mo down

Friday, 03 August 2007

Finnish mobile giant increases hold on handset market…

According to a new analysis from ABI Research Finland’s Nokia has increased its dominance of the cell phone handset market while Motorola’s share of that business has declined.

In its ‘Mobile Devices Market Sizing & Share database’ ABI Research estimates that 263.8mn mobile handsets were shipped in Q2 2007, a year-over-year quarterly increase of 13%. “A 13% increase is hardly stellar,” says Jake Saunders, vice president at ABI Research, “but it does pay the handset vendors’ bills. The second half of the year should prove more robust, ending the year with 15% YoY growth at 1.13bn.”

“More dramatic was Nokia’s continued consolidation of the handset market,” adds wireless research director Stuart Carlaw. “Nokia’s market share grew by 1.4% to 37.3% in the second quarter, the largest increase in market share of all the vendors. LG and Sony Ericsson also made respectable gains of 0.8% and 0.6%. Samsung’s market share increase was more muted. Since Motorola has retrenched from emerging markets, and is still in the process of revamping its handset portfolio, it should not come as too much of a surprise that Motorola’s handset market share shrank to 13.1% compared to 17.1% in Q1 2007. It was only two quarters ago that Motorola’s market share was 22.1%.”

ABI reckons the vacuum created by Motorola’s loss of market share is creating opportunities for other vendors. Samsung and LG have announced their intentions to penetrate the Indian, Chinese, and Southeast Asian markets. Other vendors are expanding their presences outside their core markets. Research In Motion reported that 30% of its BlackBerry subscribers are now based outside North America. Similarly Sony Ericsson has been able to harness its Cybershot (camera-centric) and Walkman (media-centric) handsets to expand its presence well beyond Europe.

Nokia managed to maintain its handset average selling price (€90 vs €89) through the introduction of a number of mid to high end handset models. Most other vendors, however, saw heavy declines in ASP.

However, judges ABI, North America is definitely the Finnish company’s soft underbelly. Despite a number of initiatives by Nokia senior management to bolster its presence in the North American market, handset shipments shrank further, from 4.8mn to 4.1mn in Q2 2007. And while Apple’s iPhone may not be going to alter the North American competitive landscape radically in the foreseeable future, Nokia’s perceived weakness in the CDMA handset market, the iPhone, and a number of other Smartphone vendors, such as RIM, are curbing Nokia’s traction in the North American market.

Also commenting on the state of the handset universe is US electronics value chain analyst iSuppli. Although the iSuppli figures differ somewhat from those of ABI, both companies agree that Motorola is not holding its own in the marketplace.

Odd man out
iSuppli says that Motorola’s poor Q2 performance in the global mobile handset market helped boost the results of its competitors, most notably Samsung. In this analysis in the second quarter Motorola shipped 35.5mn mobile handsets, a 21.8% decline from 45.4mn in the first quarter of 2007. Company market share plunged to 13.3%, down 4.6 points from 17.9% in Q1. Motorola was the only company among the top five OEMs to suffer a decline in shipments. Meanwhile, Samsung of South Korea shipped 37.4mn mobile handsets during the period, a 7.5% increase from 34.8mn during the first quarter. This gave Samsung a market share of 14.1%, up from 13.8% in the first quarter, allowing it to displace Motorola as the world’s second-largest mobile-handset OEM in the second quarter.

“The mobile-handset business moves fast; the rapid pace of innovation means that products that were red hot last quarter are ice cold the next quarter,” reasons Tina Teng, analyst, wireless communications for iSuppli. “Motorola’s product mix in the second quarter remained largely unchanged compared to the first quarter, with a substantial proportion of upgraded RAZR handsets being offered. With its product line standing pat, Motorola reported its ASP improved slightly, rising by US$1.25 compared to the first quarter. This resulted in Motorola suffering an operating margin of negative 6.2% during the period.”

Motorola had held the number two rank in mobile handsets at least since the first quarter of 2001 when iSuppli began tracking this market.

iSuppli says that while Samsung was the most prominent beneficiary of Motorola’s woes, all the top handset OEMs expanded their market share at the company’s expense. Leading handset OEM Nokia gained 1.9 percentage points of share, Sony Ericsson added 0.7 of a point and LG Electronics boosted its position by 0.9 of a percentage point. “To get back in the mobile handset race, Motorola must improve its product mix by offering attractive high-end, highly profitable 3G models - especially in Europe,” concludes Teng. “The company also needs to cut operating costs. It’s likely that Motorola will need at least another two quarters to regain its competitive position.”
John Williamson