# Microsoft buys Nokia- Will this save their smartphone venture? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 3, 2013, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-buys-nokia-will-this-save-their-smartphone-venture/667865 "2013-09-03T05:00:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2013, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-buys-nokia-will-this-save-their-smartphone-venture/667865/101 "2013-09-07T12:24:48Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > 1. Exactly. But that’s not what my post was direct at. Um, yes it was. Otherwise you have no reason to talk about Chinese phone makers “eating Samsung’s lunch.” > [@](#): > > 1. Exactly. And I don’t care about China - see anon. What matters is the global market. Also, this discussion was primarily about competing OS’s. That was the topic I was addressing and you seem to be avoiding now that I’ve made it clear that the OS as a platform is critical, especially in the early stages of market development. This is just a baseless assumption on your part. Do you have any evidence that most of the stuff coming from home grown Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei are being exported to other countries, versus most of their phones being sold in their home market? > [@](#): > > 1. That’s nice. So what. China exports most of what it makes. Again, this is just your opinion. If you have evidence that Chinese headquartered handset makers are exporting most of their stuff and companies like Huawei aren’t primarily selling handsets in the Chinese market, please produce those. > [@](#): > > 1. Once again, a baseless assumption on your part. No, it’s a deductive assumption for which I laid out the reasoning. I don’t have numbers to back it up, but nor do you have any to back up the assumptions you’ve made. That’s a two way street. If I can’t make logical deductions about figures, you certainly don’t get to say “China is an export market” over and over without some evidence to back up the idea that companies like Huawei or ZTE are actually eroding Samsung’s sales in the global market. An entirely **possible** conclusion from the figures you presented is they are simply growing in their home market and have exported few handsets abroad. Without actual evidence to the contrary, it’s just as valid an assumption as anything else. Simply repeating the phrase “China is an export economy” does not change that. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2013, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-buys-nokia-will-this-save-their-smartphone-venture/667865/102 "2013-09-07T12:32:58Z")
> [@BorgHunter](#): > > That would be an incorrect thing to assume. In 2011, the most recent numbers I could find, Huawei [makes more than twice as much money outside China than within it](http://www.huawei.com/en/about-huawei/corporate-info/annual-report/annual-report-2011/ManagementDiscussionandAnalysis/BusinessReview2011/), with higher growth overseas as well. ZTE [makes a little less than half its money in China](http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/business-news/129135-nigeria-others-account-for-93-per-cent-of-ztes-global-revenue). Chinese manufacturers are huge in the entire developing world, which includes a lot of places you wouldn’t think of like rural India and a lot of countries in Africa. This is, incidentally, where Nokia sells most of its devices as well; its Asha line is targeted to this market, and a lot of people are speculating that Microsoft’s play is to get Windows Phone into the developing world to build up platform mindshare from the bottom up, since competing on the high end isn’t getting terribly much traction. Actually what would be incorrect is to assume your figures have anything to do with the handset market. Huawei is a massive producer of networking equipment that sells all kinds of telecom stuff not related to handsets. Your figures just talk about total corporate sales for Huawei, and since handsets are not at all their largest business we have no idea from those figures how many handsets they are selling outside of China. ZTE is similar, it’s smaller than Huawei but it also sells a ton of products (Huawei is the world’s largest network equipment manufacturer, ZTE is in the top ten), so we can’t really conclude anything about the handset market in particular from your numbers. I’m not married to the idea that most of Huawei’s handset growth has been in China, maybe it hasn’t. But no one has actually presented evidence that the reason Samsung’s share of global handset sales decreased by 1% if because of competition from manufacturers like Huawei. It is entirely **possible** that all of the growth shown in **deltasigma** ’s chart for the Chinese handset makers came in their home market, and since Samsung has grown in China over the same period that means it didn’t lose any share to those companies. Which would then mean you’d have to look elsewhere to explain Samsung’s 1% drop in market share. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2013, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-buys-nokia-will-this-save-their-smartphone-venture/667865/103 "2013-09-07T12:39:42Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > 1. That’s because you completely missed the point. That you thought the world’s largest market cap was laugh-worthy? No, I think I got the point. I actually suspect you were unaware that despite its share price decrease Apple was still the most valuable company in the world. > [@](#): > > 1. You’re confused since you seem unable to distinguish between hardware and OS. My post about Apple was about their hardware. But since in their case the 2 are really part of the same package you, for some inexplicable reason, assumed I was talking about the OS. Why? It’s not as if iOS is regularly ported to non-Apple hardware. So why would you even make that leap? How many times are you going to change what you’re talking about? So what you’re really talking about with Apple is their hardware? After all your talk of platforms that makes no sense in the context of your other posts. > [@](#): > > 1. What the fuck are you talking about? The platform IS the OS. The OS IS the platform. Obviously I understand that. I made that argument to YOU - remember? This comment of yours makes no sense in response to what you are (ostensibly) responding to, I noted that in regard to your claim that smartphones are a “platform market” that Samsung’s competitors who you assert are “eating its lunch” run the same platform. This is a non-response to that point. > [@](#): > > 1. Nothing seems to be making much sense here. I think that’s because you’re a combative person, that doesn’t really know much about anything you talk about and relies on furious Google searches to fill in ignorance on virtually every issue that you talk about on these forums. You combine this with an extremely combative personality and it leads to you just throwing out a bunch of poorly connected, incoherent points that change with the shifting wind. > [@](#): > > 1. I’ve already address the insignificance of market share vis-a-vis revenue in the mobile market as to the OS side. On the hardware side, I honestly haven’t given that much thought. As I said, I barely follow this industry and don’t try to pretend otherwise. I’d say this entire thread is you trying to pretend otherwise. > [@](#): > > 1. In post 70 you made some claims about US Android usage but provided no links. I consider that pulling numbers out of your ass. I provided the links in post 71 - you’re welcome. Don’t be a child and say “you’re welcome” when no thanks was offered. I referenced a study and included the date involved, I chose not to provide a convenient hyperlink but I gave more than enough information to find the report the number came from. The fact that you actually found the exact number I mentioned, proves I was in fact not pulling anything out of my ass but referencing the exact same report that you later found. We are not writing research papers here, minor figures that are not really a significant part of the point being made do not need to be cited unless someone takes issue with them. ---
**Author:** ![deltasigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2013, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-buys-nokia-will-this-save-their-smartphone-venture/667865/104 "2013-09-07T14:23:25Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > [1]That you thought the world’s largest market cap was laugh-worthy? No, I think I got the point. I actually suspect you were unaware that despite its share price decrease Apple was still the most valuable company in the world. > > [2]How many times are you going to change what you’re talking about? So what you’re really talking about with Apple is their hardware? After all your talk of platforms that makes no sense in the context of your other posts. > > [3]This comment of yours makes no sense in response to what you are (ostensibly) responding to, I noted that in regard to your claim that smartphones are a “platform market” that Samsung’s competitors who you assert are “eating its lunch” run the same platform. This is a non-response to that point. > > [4]I think that’s because you’re a combative person, that doesn’t really know much about anything you talk about and relies on furious Google searches to fill in ignorance on virtually every issue that you talk about on these forums. You combine this with an extremely combative personality and it leads to you just throwing out a bunch of poorly connected, incoherent points that change with the shifting wind. > > [5]I’d say this entire thread is you trying to pretend otherwise. > > [6]Don’t be a child and say “you’re welcome” when no thanks was offered. I referenced a study and included the date involved, I chose not to provide a convenient hyperlink but I gave more than enough information to find the report the number came from. The fact that you actually found the exact number I mentioned, proves I was in fact not pulling anything out of my ass but referencing the exact same report that you later found. We are not writing research papers here, minor figures that are not really a significant part of the point being made do not need to be cited unless someone takes issue with them. 1. Why would I give a shit? It’s people who don’t have any actual money to invest that pay attention to stats like that. I look at information that can make me money like what are the most liquid option trades. Do you even know where to go for information like that. Better yet, what an iron condor is or how to trade one? 2. Whatever you say dude, whatever you say 😛 3. Yes, I’m familiar with the concept of the non-response from many of your posts. 4. Funny, that’s my image of you as well. 5. see # 4 6. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-buys-nokia-will-this-save-their-smartphone-venture/667865/105 "2013-09-07T14:56:42Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Don’t be a child and say “you’re welcome” when no thanks was offered. You both need to dial it down a little. There are two other forums that are better suited for what your argument is starting to become and this isn’t one of them. Cool it down some, both of you. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2013, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-buys-nokia-will-this-save-their-smartphone-venture/667865/106 "2013-09-07T18:06:08Z")
Interesting development: Amazon’s phone will apparently be priced at $0. [http://jessicalessin.com/2013/09/06/exclusive-amazon-wants-to-offer-its-smartphone-for-free-who-will-follow/](http://jessicalessin.com/2013/09/06/exclusive-amazon-wants-to-offer-its-smartphone-for-free-who-will-follow/) ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2013, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-buys-nokia-will-this-save-their-smartphone-venture/667865/107 "2013-09-07T19:06:43Z")
[Relevant](http://www.afr.com/p/technology/next_nokia_insider_who_knows_why_Z8at1lqZLp3mAutUO0ye0H): > [@](#): > > **The Nokia insider who knows why it failed warns Apple it could be next** > > **{…}** > > Speaking to \*The Australian Financial Review \*from his design studio in Los Angeles, where he works on designs for numerous clients including luxury phone maker Vertu and smart watch firm MetaWatch, Nuovo says Nokia became a victim of its size. > In an honest assessment, he laments Nokia’s missed opportunities. It had working prototypes for 8-inch tablet computers years before the iPad emerged, toyed with touch screens before Apple “invented” them and let its dominance slip by seeking to protect what it had. > “I look back and I think Nokia was just a very big company that started to maintain its position more than innovate for new opportunities,” Nuovo says. > “All of the opportunities were in front of them and Nokia was working on them, but the key word is a sense of urgency. While things were in play there was a real sense of saying ‘we will get to that eventually.’” > Nuovo is not overly critical of the leadership at Nokia, but says the company’s dominance of the smartphone market left it in a bind. It had a huge user base of customers who liked what they had, and also needed to be supported. > In hindsight it got the balance fatally wrong, servicing its existing product at the expense of fresh innovation. > **{…}** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-buys-nokia-will-this-save-their-smartphone-venture/667865.md?page=5)