Nokia Becomes The Fourth Largest Smartphone Brand in USA in Q3 2013

[usaphp]

I am very glad to see how the company which I love and follow for so many years is getting more and more share in the US market. The best thing I like about Nokia is how they are obsessed with quality of their products, I think in terms of build quality and design, Nokia is the only smartphone/tablet maker at this time to be a real competitor to Apple.

[sker]

Yes, Nokia is the only company that gives me hardware envy. I've been wanting to run Android on one of those gorgeous Lumias for a long time. I've never felt like running Android on an iPhone.

Maybe if they reach 10%+ someone will take the trouble of hacking Android into one of their phones.

[Geee]

Too bad it's now just Microsoft and they'll drop the Nokia name too. Microsoft has Lumia and Asha brands and they can use Nokia brand just for dumb phones. Quite intriguing is that neither Nokia or Microsoft has the right to use Nokia name in smartphones until 2016, when Nokia is freed again to release phones with it's own brand.

[dolphenstein]

It's only Nokia by name going forward. The name will likely be killed off once MS completes it's assimilation in to the collective.

[outside1234]

Nokia is going to make the turn, against all the odds. This is really promising news for having a 3 platform horserace to keep things honest.

[Nux]

What are you smoking, dude? There's no more Nokia to make the turn. Their entire phone section now belongs to Microsoft.

[cpprototypes]

Competition is good but for app development it's becoming too much. Android and iOS and WP and maybe Firefox OS? Who can handle developing four versions of an app? There's been a lot of debate on native vs web based on performance. But web may become the only reasonable way to release an app on all platforms.

[BadassFractal]

It's probably not as big of a deal as you think. If you're piloting an app, you're probably going to stick to just Android for rapid development or perhaps iOS for the larger market share in certain categories. Eventually if you get big enough to justify supporting multiple platforms, you should be able to get enough staff to support them all individually.

If you're building for all platforms with no indication that your product is of high value, then this might be even beneficial for developer focus on finding product market fit.

[kronholm]

Thus why cross-platform solutions are having tremendous growth. If web won't win out, it'll certainly be a cross-platform solution in the long run. My money's on web, if performance of those webviews catches up to native.

[gokhan]

Xamarin or competitors might be a good way to handle different platforms for your app.

[c1sc0]

If you're using a PaaS like Parse.com then the only thing you'll really be changing between devices is the frontend.

[nickfox]

real programmers do it natively. :) And if anyone wants an app written on all 3 platforms, feel free to message me.

[camus2]

What you want is to give the best user experience, not a generic webview or cross/plateform framework. And to get the best user experience one needs to go native period. There is no debate , web based app performances are low on anything more than a basic CRUD app...

[pawn]

I just recently got a Nokia 1020 and I love the camera so much. People keep asking "so does it REALLY have that good of a camera?" My favorite thing to do is to take a random picture while they watch, and then zoom way in on some text that's unreadable to their eyes, or zoom in on someone's skin pores.

[rbanffy]

Sounds impressive until you realize they're #4 with 4% market share.

[sz4kerto]

That's how you start in a market already dominated by competitors.

Just as a comparison, only Apple managed to sustain ~5% market share on the PC market since MS has dominated it. Entering the mobile market is very similar in difficulty to entering the desktop segment with a new OS.

[outside1234]

in the US. In Italy, the Nokia line is outselling the iPhone.

[AnotherDesigner]

When I finally gave up my Wifi+Skype plan for a cell phone with data a while ago, I went with a Nokia phone. It's stylish and affordable and Nokia is known for building things that last. The phone is great. But my feelings for Microsoft haven't improved. Shortly after I purchased the phone, Microsoft announced they wouldn't provide an upgrade path for Windows Phone 7 to 8. Then they announced they would release a mini-update to Windows Phone 7.8 for us that would bring some of the features. I waited six months or so for a tiny update and then they took it away and never released it on my phone. As long as Nokia is running Windows Phone, I will never buy another. And I certainly won't ever buy another Windows Phone anything again after the way they treated their users. I feel like my phone is running a beta version of Windows Phone and will never get updated to the real thing.

[IOException]

Just got Nokia 520 last week as a throwaway phone (while I wait for 5s). I must say its great phone with windows phone 8 looking very polished and useful - only problem MS-Nokia has is quality and number of apps - hopefully they will be able to reach tipping point soon.

For 80$, no contract this is great deal going on now.

[programminggeek]

This is all because of the Lumia 520, which is really driving Nokia's sales. There is a good space at the low end of the smartphone market and with people moving towards prepaid or no-contract in the US, a cheap off contract smartphone like the 520 is a really winner.

This is also good because Nokia is like 80+% of Windows Phone sales, so that means Windows Phone is creeping upward against Android (for better or worse)

[Tarrosion]

The 520 really is a fantastic phone for its price point. Less than $100 no contract, and for 99% of daily activities I find it to be as good as or better than my friends' iPhones and Galaxies.

[300bps]

Based on world smartphone sales it looks like it could be just as easily taking market share from Apple:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/31/strategy-analytics-q3-201...

Anyway, I love my Lumia 928. After having 3 iPhones it's the best phone I've ever had.

[devx]

It's too bad they didn't continue things with Meego. I would've preferred another open source OS to be the 3rd platform instead of another closed source one.

Windows Phone owes the vast majority of its success to Nokia anyway, because most of the early adopters bought Nokia phones because of the hardware and despite Windows Phone, which is why Nokia has like 90 percent market share of the WP market.

If this wasn't the case, the market would've been more decentralized. You could also test the theory another way - if Nokia would've quit WP for Android this year (if Microsoft wouldn't have bought them), Windows Phone would be dead almost immediately.

Plus, Nokia's phones actually looked nicer with Meego:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/06/nokia-...

http://cdn.theunlockr.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Android...

[Brakenshire]

> It's too bad they didn't continue things with Meego. I would've preferred another open source OS to be the 3rd platform instead of another closed source one.

I really don't want to come across as a shill (I've just made two concurrent posts about this), but have you heard of Sailfish/Jolla? They're basically ex-Nokia engineers trying to reboot Meego/N9-era Nokia smartphones.

[freehunter]

That looks almost exactly like Windows Phone with an iPhone or Android style apple launcher.

[killme]

That looks like yet another icon based UI [1]. Not sure what I am missing, but almost all mobile OSes except WP seem to be based off [1].

[1] http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_PROGMAN.GI...

[smegel]

This is more about the fall of once strong companies like HTC than Nokia's rise...and the eternal dominance of Apple and Samsung.

[pessimizer]

But it took that share from Motorola, not the leaders. A better headline would be "Nokia ships more smartphones than Motorola, this quarter."

[stuaxo]

Nokia: The U.S. or the rest of the world; pick one.