Prince McLean
Earlier today, Symbian reported second quarter financial reports that outlined a significant slowdown in both growth and profits that signal an end to its rapid acceleration as the leader in smartphones worldwide and suggest tough times ahead for the iPhone competitor.
However, Symbian has a weak and shrinking presence in the US, having slid from owning 25% of the North American market in 2004 to less than 5% today. Symbian's worldwide share has also tumbled recently, from a dominating 72.8% share in late 2006 to today's 55%, as reported in Symbian's online market data.
According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, phone sales in the first half of 2008 were up 15% and smartphones are up by 35% over last year. But Symbian's second quarter sales are only up 5% over 2007, despite the company's focus on the high growth smartphone market.
Symbian prepares for hurricane iPhone
Symbian's slow growth is a big change from last fall, when the company was seeing 50% annual growth, according to a report by Reuters. One factor in the cooling sales of Symbian phones has been the high profile anticipation of the iPhone 3G.
In the second quarter, Symbian sold 19.6 million phones, compared to Apple's scant 717,000 units. iPhone sales were up 265% over the previous year-ago quarter. Of course, Apple only sold 270,000 iPhones in the year-ago quarter because it had only been on sale for parts of three days.
At the same time, this year's second fiscal quarterly iPhone sales, cited for competitive reasons on Symbian's website, were down dramatically because of extremely constrained supplies of the original model in preparation for the iPhone 3G launch. Apple subsequently sold more iPhone 3Gs on its launch weekend than it sold in the second quarter of both years put together.
Nokia sets Symbian free
In its first full quarter, Apple claimed 27% of the US market, a level of success that sent Symbian partner Sony Ericsson scrambling to find a suitable competitor and ultimately into the arms of Microsoft's Windows Mobile with the planned (and still overdue) XPERA X1 phone.
Nokia bought up Linux smartphone vendor Trolltech, and has since offered $387 million to buy out its Symbian partners and turn the company into a foundation in order to release the Symbian OS as an open source project similar to Google's Android.
The bottom appears to be falling out of the smartphone OS software business, as Symbian's revenues fell 14% in the second quarter and Reuters noting that "average royalties per phone fell to $3.40 from $4.30."
Worldwide dominance cracked open
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has forecast sales of 4.47 million iPhone 3Gs for the current quarter, a figure he cited as conservative for not taking in to account the expanded launch of additional countries that began August 22.
That figure would put Apple's year over year growth at 400% over its first full quarter of sales, a particularly notable figure considering that its launch last year was regarded as spectacular at the time.
The difference this year is that Apple is selling the iPhone 3G on Symbian's turf worldwide. Other American companies have had little luck in breaking into Symbian's home field advantage, with both Windows Mobile and RIM's BlackBerry together accounting for nearly none of the Japanese market and less than 10% of the market in Europe, China, and other regions after years of trying (above), according to Canalys.
With sales of 4 million units, Apple would take a 12% share of the world all by itself in its first full quarter of worldwide sales.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
233 Comments
Even if every iPhone 3G buyer had bought a Symbian phone, it wouldn't affect Symbian's numbers very much. Symbian's sales are an order of magnitude larger than Apple's. To blame the iPhone directly for Symbian's small growth is folly.
The problem for Symbian is that Nokia drive their sales. If Nokia don't release any new Symbian device then Symbian's bottom line takes a hit. That's what we saw in Q1 and that's what we're seeing again in Q2.
Nokia have released a few new Symbian devices in Q2 but the real big hitters - the N96 and Tube - are scheduled for the second half of the year.
An "order of magnitude" is 10x. So if you're comparing iPhone sales before it went world wide during the period when there were no iPhones to buy, then yes. But if you compare iPhone 3G sales, when it actually was, you know, being sold, then no, Symbian does not sell 40 million phones per quarter. Apple appears to have grabbed a fifth of Symbian's worldwide smartphone market in its first attempt.
And that fifth came out of Symbian's premium buyers, not their mass market bulk sales of simple phones.
Regardless of what Nokia does, smartphones are selling at around 35 million per quarter. Apple still grabbed more than 10% of that market and saw 400% growth over its launch. No way to blow that off, and Symbian is taking things pretty seriously / running scared.
If the Zune had grabbed 27% of the US market from Apple in its first quarter, and 12% of the world wide market in the first year, and sent the iPod down from from 75% to 55% market share, I doubt anyone could say "pfft, the new iPods are coming out later."
An "order of magnitude" is 10x. So if you're comparing iPhone sales before it went world wide during the period when there were no iPhones to buy, then yes. But if you compare iPhone 3G sales, when it actually was, you know, being sold, then no, Symbian does not sell 40 million phones per quarter. Apple appears to have grabbed a fifth of Symbian's worldwide smartphone market in its first attempt.
Er, second attempt or did the previous iPhone 2G not count as an attempt?
And it's a little rich quoting Symbian's actuals against an analyst's predictions.
Also, what is the point in showing graphs of market share and sales that stop at Q3 2007 in an article about Q2 2008 sales/share? Isn't that a little silly and undermining your argument?
The second graph showing percentages of each territory is also as much use as an iPhone camera in a dark room. It doesn't show the relative sizes of each market for smartphones giving the impression that each is the same size in total.
And that fifth came out of Symbian's premium buyers, not their mass market bulk sales of simple phones.
That's just nonsense. Apple's share of the worldwide market was almost entirely from US sales where Symbian phones aren't widely available so how can Apple's market share be at Symbian's expense?
Regardless of what Nokia does, smartphones are selling at around 35 million per quarter. Apple still grabbed more than 10% of that market and saw 400% growth over its launch. No way to blow that off, and Symbian is taking things pretty seriously / running scared.
I'm pretty sure they aren't. Nokia sold a squidillion phones last quarter. Selling more smartphones than anyone else by quite some margin isn't going to get them worried either.
They've plenty of time and their platform runs on much lower end hardware. If I were Nokia I'd be more worried about Google and Linux than Apple's boutique phones.
If the Zune had grabbed 27% of the US market from Apple in its first quarter, and 12% of the world wide market in the first year, and sent the iPod down from from 75% to 55% market share, I doubt anyone could say "pfft, the new iPods are coming out later."
Who the fuck cares about market share? I'll have well made, feature rich, bug free phone thanks. When Apple ships one, I'll buy one. That's why I use Macs, not their market share.
If the Zune had grabbed 27% of the US market from Apple in its first quarter, and 12% of the world wide market in the first year, and sent the iPod down from from 75% to 55% market share, I doubt anyone could say "pfft, the new iPods are coming out later."
Your math is wrong.
If Symbian's market share dropped 20%, that's 7 million phones that have 'gone missing'. With the iPhone projected at 4.5 million sales this quarter, even if every single iPhone buyer is a lost Symbian customer, there's still an unaccounted 2.5 million units. Considering that the virtually Symbian-free US is still Apple's strongest market and virtually iPhone-free China is Symbian's biggest market, it's clear that most of Symbian sales are being lost for reasons other than the iPhone.
Good to see something finally taking on Symbian / Nokia out here in the rest of the world. Phones have been so booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooring.