The world’s largest phone maker Nokia decided to slash the prices on handsets across its portfolio by around 10 percent in late January, according to Reuters, just a few days after posting strong sales for its October-December quarter of 2009.The Finnish company does not provide exact pricing for specific models, but it is believed that the price cut will bring its smartphone models more in line with the mid-range offerings from its competitors, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.
But even without reducing its handset prices, Nokia was able to deliver solid numbers for the previous three-month period. The vendor shipped a total of 126.9 million phones in the fourth quarter of 2009, 17 percent more than in Q3 and 12 percent more than in the year-ago quarter. This raised its global market share for the quarter to 39 percent, slightly up from 38 percent as of September 2008.
Nokia’s smartphone segment also did well, with 20.8 million smartphones sold during the fourth quarter, compared with 15.1 million in the same period of 2008. It now accounts for approximately 40 percent of the smartphone industry, up from 35 percent three months ago, indicating that the manufacturer may be regaining its momentum to fight against mighty opponents, Apple with the iPhone and Research in Motion with the BlackBerry.
Its growth in smartphone market share was driven by the successful launch of new touch and QWERTY models during the quarter, such as the E72 and the N97 mini, according to Nokia's CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. "Our performance in smartphones, combined with continuing success in the emerging markets, helped us increase sales in our Devices & Services unit, both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year," he added.
Nokia seems to be making a comeback following the return of market growth, but it is still conservative about its outlook. Looking ahead to 2010, Nokia expects the whole mobile industry to grow 10 percent compared to last year, while its own share of the market will remain flat.
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