London, Dec.09 (PRINTWORDS NEWS) -
There was a time almost six out of ten people used to own a Nokia mobile handset, models from competitors like Samsung and LG were a rarity. Things have changed dramatically in the last few years. Now the crown of most desirable cell phone goes to Apple iPhone and companies like RIM and HTC are steadily wooing away more users from Nokia’s share. The Finnish mobile giant possibly failed to gauge the appeal of iPhone when it was launched two years back. However, the iPhone became a runaway success with the users like many Apple products and Nokia found many users switching loyalty to apple and others before it could understand what went wrong.
It seems that Nokia is reeling under the competition from Apple and the signs of fatigue are evident. In a recent development, Nokia has decided to close its Oxford Street store. The flagship store was opened with much fanfare last year. At that time the telecoms giant sounded optimistic about offering the UK users a whole new mobile experience with its range of devices. One year later, the picture looks different. The Apple Street located on Regent Street continues to enjoy increasing footfall but the Nokia store has failed to catch up with it.
The outlet is likely to be shut down by the first quarter of next year. This is quite disappointing for Nokia as it put quite a lot of money into developing the store. It seems quite odd that Nokia that once ruled the telecoms world with its wide range of mobile phone and survived many ups and downs of the industry is now struggling to cope up with smaller sized rivals. It has taken a severe drubbing in the high end smart phones segment. This year the company reported a fall in handset sales, first time after 2001. With each passing month its market share is also diminishing.
The industry experts are of the opinion that Nokia is suffering for its failure to come up with a flagship high end phone. Things got worse for Nokia after Apple stunned the world with iPhone. With each inarnation Apple has only improved the iPhone while Nokia’s latest offering in touch screen phones have met with moderate response. Meanwhile RIM introduced various versions of its business oriented BlackBerry phones that attracted a lot of corporate users. On the contrary, Nokia’s N97 failed to create much impact among the users. To make things worse for Nokia, US baed Motorola which was written off by most tech experts have staged a successful comeback with its Milestone and other Android based Smart phones.
Nokia still rules in the entry level handset market and the emerging markets are its forte. However, 2009 was a tough year for the company and 2010 may prove to be tougher. The mobile industry experts feel that Nokia needs to get back to the drawing board and revamp its existing portfolio. It also needs to fix the user interface issues in its Symbian OS based devices that irked the users.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=9aa86d2f-b58d-4753-b2d4-7bea22cd659e "Nokia Shows Sign Of Fatigue After Competition From Apple, Plans To Close Oxford Street Store")
Related posts:
- Nokia Plans To Storm Into The Smart Phone Market With Its Upcoming N900
- Nokia X6 Pitted Against iPhone 3GS: Who Wins?
- The Most Expensive iPhone Debuts in Liverpool
- Motorola’s Dext Designed To Take Social Networking To New Levels
- Tesco Plans For A Superstore Surge Prior To Upcoming Restrictions
