The location of all companies is an assessment based on some broad data. A more detailed analysis can be made. First, using world market data is not correct since sales are local. Some companies with regional strategies will look worse than they should. Second, it would have been better to use revenue market share instead of unit market share. That would rightly make the high end companies look more powerful. Another way to accomplish the same would be to study smartphones separately.
2003
Nokia is the undisputed leader in the industry. There are four runner up companies trying to catch Nokia. All of the five leading companies use Symbian OS, which, at the time, is a joint venture between all of them. They have similar strategy (standard product differentiation through product innovation and supported by advertising).In addition there are Japanese companies mostly focusing on the Japanese market, which is not using the the GSM standard used in the rest of the world.
Siemens is the only European company left after Alcatel and Philips exited the market earlier.
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| Figure 1. All companies with a worldwide market share of 1% listed. Companies with more than 5% are in bold. Number after company name indicate market share in units. |
2006
Nokia remains the undisputed leader, but the runner-up companies are all getting stronger (combined market share increases from 33% to 39%).RIM (Blackberry) enters the market successfully with a niche strategy.
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| Figure 2. This situation in 2006. The Japanese companies are put together in a group as I am not aware of how they differ. |
2009
Apple'e iphone has been on the market since 2007, but remains a high-end niche product at the time (largely focusing on English speaking countries.) RIM is performing well with a niche market (strong in US, Canada, and a few other countries).Samsung has pulled away from its peers and is seriously threatening Nokia. LG is also increasing market share. Consider it the positive effect of a Korean telecom industrial cluster. SonyEricsson and Motorola keep losing market share.
Nokia is beginning to slide and is by 2009 down in markets share in almost all regions.
The OS situation is getting complex. RIM and Apple have proprietary OS. All companies previously using Symbian have largely moved to Android OS, except Nokia which has taken over ownership of Symbian and continues to (stubbornly) use it.
HTC has entered the market with high-end handsets, but remains a niche player. It has a stronger position in China and the US.
Chinese companies are beginning to appear on the scene. They use an open source version of Android OS.
The Japanese companies are suffering as Japan is now using a similar 3G network as the rest of the world.
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| Figure 3. The situation in 2009. It would have been appropriate to have the possibility curve shift upwards due to (1) the touch user interface and (2) the application ecosystems. These two innovations have greatly increased the positioning opportunities. However, in the figure, I have decided not to change the shape of the possibility frontier. |
2012
Apple has grown into a mainstream company. Samsung has overtaken the leading position in the market place. Nokia is falling sharply because they refused to adopt Android OS. Nokia has further announced that they will stop development of Symbian OS and instead move to Windows OS. This isn't helping, at least not until the first Windows phone is introduced.RIM is falling sharply due to competition from Apple's iOS and Android OS.
LG keeps hanging in there, but is struggling in the new competitive environment. HTC is increasing their market share, but from a very low level. Sony (Ericsson no longer a partner) and Motorola (now owned by Google, and in 2014 bought by Lenovo) keep losing market share quickly.
A number of Chinese (four with >1% of world market) and Indian companies (three with >1% of world market). So far these companies are mainly focusing on the China and India markets respectively. In addition to China, ZTE and Huawei have around 1% each of the European market in 2012. The Indian companies are only focusing on the Indian market. All Chinese companies have 36% of the Chinese market and all Indian companies have 21% of the Indian market.
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| Figure 4. The situation in 2012. The Japanese, Chinese, and Indian companies have been put together in clusters due to lack of detailed positioning information. |
The future
At the moment nothing is seriously threatening Apple and Samsung. Apple has a clearly differentiated strategy. Samsung is potentially more vulnerable due to the lack of a unique operating system.Nokia has fallen like a rock after the announcement that they would stop developing Symbian and only develop Windows phones. Clearly the new owner, Microsoft, would like to see Nokia with a uniqueness strategy. competing with Apple and Samsung. Given that there are already two major operating systems, it is unclear whether Microsoft/Nokia will survive in its current format. Research on network economics would strongly predict that a third OS would fail. However, Microsoft has huge pockets.
LG seems to have the best chance of taking the second position using the Android OS. Both Sony and Motorola have lost a lot of market share and it is doubtful whether they can stage a comeback. At least Sony is developing high-quality phones. Motorola has largely given up the world outside the US. However this will change with the acquisition of Motorola by Lenovo.
The most interesting aspect of the 2012 environment is that four Chinese and three Indian companies have a world-wide market share above 1%. In the coming years, we will see many of these companies venturing abroad. Lenovo has already done so in early 2014 by acquiring Google's Motorola, Huawei and ZTE through organic growth. Some are likely to pursue worldwide low cost strategies once technology has stabilised (mainly battery performance.)
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