Nokia on collision course with Apple

I know Nokia sells boatloads of phones, but definitely not in the USA.

In the US, The #2 carrier (Verizon) Sells 0 Nokias. The #1 Carrier (Cingular) sells only a few models and they are not that popular at all.

Just curious where the Nokia sales are - you hardly see anyone carrying Nokia any more.

Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe... They are cheap and very popular there.

One other thing; they said they sell more 'music' phones (mp3-capable) than Apple sells iPods. Anyone field a guess how many of those music phones actually play music (other than mp3 ringtones already built-in)? Mobile phones are an enourmous global makret. The people buying them use them to - surprise! -- make phone calls! I wouldn't be surprised if only one in 8 people owning these music phones actually knows how to use the mp3 player. In addition, Nokia is positioning itself here between the consumer and the carrier. Carriers won't like this; they'd probably prefer to run their 'iTMS-killers' themselves. Nokia might be a challenger here, but Apple still doesn't have anything to worry about.

I understand Nokia wanting to take on apple, but I'm not sure how they plan to circumvent their carriers in the US. Verizon & sprint alreeady have online music stores. Cingular & t-Mobile probably do as well. Is Nokia planning to host those stores for the carriers, or are they trying to set up their own music stores to compete with the carriers' own offerings? I can't think Verizon, et al would be happy about the latter scenario.

Could work out, but so far the music phones haven't been that great & I can't imagine that they would be all that fun to find/ buy music on. I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't Nokia's first choice, but they felt that had to make a move before apple comes out with their ipod/phone & steals away the market, like they have from real/napster/yahoo music/ walmart/ etc.

>> the market for music phones will be larger than the market for stand-alone music players. The bulk of music-playing devices sold is likely to be the cell phones.

Sorry don't think so bubba, people don't use phones for listening to music. How about getting a phone that's really good for talking, what a novel idea?! Especially since that hasn't even been accomplished yet by this industry.

when apple releases an iPod that has cell phone functionality what will nokia do then? hmmm???

lol.

Yeah, this could be a problem. I see it eating into sales to a degree and over some time.

Pros: Download over-the-air is very nice One device to carry Voice telephony Instant messaging Walkie-talkie Pause music on call receive Send MP3 clips to your friend (nominal fee!) Songs as ringtones Builtin camera / video recorder

Cons: Current iTunes collection won't transfer Phones are so disposable (transfer songs?) CLUNKY! The suck to work out with (size/weight) Battery life? Poor movie playback Not a platform (3rd party add-ons)

Please add to my list.

...once again concentrating on phone features most people don't want or need. While it is true that the bulk of Nokia's customer base is in Asia and Europe, and while having the newest Nokia is a status symbol (of sorts), the majority of of gimmicks these users use are custom ringtones, custom ringers (what he caller hears), and cameras (video and photo).

This harks back to the time when Nokia was experimenting with new 'designs' resulting in phones that weren't easy to use, or doing much for calling... and a resulting slide in marketshare (back when SonyEricsson ate their lunch).

The renewed push towards feature-rich phones allowed them to regain lost marketshare, but it seems that now they are going to distract themselves, again, from their core business - making phones.

Personally, having a Nokia N70 (and covetting an N80 or N73), I really like their phones for the multimedia features (camera and video), but care little to not at all for the music player. Based on my observations, people that are status obsessed will have a Nokia, but also an iPod - and unless the Nokia phone has a similar ecosystem than the iPod (tons of accessories in support of the music players), I don't see them having ANY impact. So far, the gamut of their 'accessories' is limited to custom headphones with proprietary connectors...

'nuff said.

Nokia makes some of the best and most durable phones. Granted, I just cracked my case on my 6102i near the antenna while working on my car, but I've spilled a little but of water on a SonyEricsson and it shorted right out. I've dropped nokias in pools, let them dry, and they've sprung back to life. Nokia and Moto make my favorite phones, more Nokia than Moto due to interface AND their acquisition of the Symbian OS and the Series 60 phones. I like the design aspect they give out, my most favorite phone was the rotary dial, and I wanted the "lipstick tube" phone released in europe that was voice controlled. I'd rather have a phone that fits my needs, Nokia is one of the few companies who manages to fill that niche for me. Anyway, I think they're going to find that unless they develope a really really good player and stick a headphone jack on it, they're gonna lose the game. Now if they did NOT align with the MS DRM and they supported ONLY MP3 files they'd be a shoe in with the open source crowd, and with Nokia chargers being readily accessible (around NC at least, every store carries a Nokia charger), I can use it in the car via AUX-in, cassette adapter or FM modulator JUST LIKE AN iPOD with a CHEAPER charging cable. I like having a phone, camera and mp3 player combination, and as soon as Nokia delivers that I'll get one. I do not own an iPod anymore, I find them to be rather annoyingly yuppy, however my new USB-enabled CD player very well may spark a Shuffle purchase, using the python script so I can drag and drop songs onto it of course. The iTunes system works well but does not play with other devices at all, and I'm all about harmony.. that's why I bought a Mac: it does what the competition does and then some.

Both of the last two Nokia phones I've had have had the capabilities to play music. Would I use them to listen to Music? Not on your life. The sound quality is poor and the software worse.

This isn't a threat to Apple and the iPod.

why don't you make a phone that plays games to take on Sony / Ninitendo...

Oh, wait a minute...