It's not often that a market moves so dramatically,
i.e. in just 3 weeks, that you have to reassess its outlook - but that's just
what we've seen during June 2012 in the mobile phone market... Our original
post, titled "Windows Phone 8: Room for another Mobile OS?" (http://ow.ly/c1EsR),
was all about the realistic market potential for Windows Phone 8 (code-named
Apollo) as a competitive mobile OS/platform? We always stated that it would be
a difficult one to accurately predict as there are so many market variables.
So, what has changed in a few short weeks?
Polarized
Vendor Performances: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly...
Samsung and Apple: Continue to Shine
We've now entered a period of staggeringly
different mobile handset manufacturer fortunes. Samsung and Apple in one camp,
with stellar performances in terms of new product launches (Galaxy SIII and the
soon to be released iPhone5) and revenue and market share gains; and, Nokia and
RIM in the other camp. The weakness of both Nokia and RIM means the shape of
the mobile device market is radically changing.
Nokia: In for a Rough Ride
Nokia’s latest results illustrate the depth of their
problems, with Q1 2012 revenues down 29% year-on-year and losses of $1.8
billion for the quarter. This, worryingly, includes the $250 million per
quarter that Microsoft is injecting into Nokia to help promote and sell Nokia's
Lumia smartphones. Thus, the big issues for Nokia right now are that it’s
losing market share, its losses are deepening and it’s fighting to regain some
semblance of stability.
Prospects of a return to normality in the short
term also faded when Microsoft announced a few weeks ago, at its Windows Phone
Developer Summit, that Windows Phone 8 would not be an upgrade option for current
Lumia smartphones. This should have been expected but it created more bad
publicity for Nokia; although admittedly Microsoft tried to mitigate against
this by offering Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 7.5 users the ability to upgrade
to Windows Phone 7.8, with the new Metro UI.
However, strategically, Nokia has much bigger
battles to win. From a market positioning viewpoint it’s effectively being hit
competitively from two sides. In the high-end smartphone arena, where Apple and
Samsung are grabbing market share, it is frustratingly having to wait for Windows
Phone 8 to be released later this year before it can hope to be competitive –
but with no certainty that this new OS platform will be a success.
And, at the low-end, the feature phone market
appears to be declining faster than anticipated, with intense competition emerging
from manufacturers such as ZTE, Huawei, etc. and low-end smartphones priced from
$100.
Indeed, as we see Nokia transition to Windows Phone
8, it is inevitably moving towards killing off its Symbian OS by cancelling all
major upgrades (i.e. in late May it was leaked that its Symbian Carla and Donna
projects had been “canned”). Despite this Nokia has released further feature phone
products such as the Asha 305, 306 and 311; this at a time when other
competitors, such as Motorola, have recently conceded that they can no longer
compete in the feature phone market and are withdrawing altogether.
So, from a consumer’s perspective there are really two
critical questions, “Why buy a Nokia feature phone based on Symbian – a platform
with no future?”; or, “Why buy a Nokia smartphone which won’t have Windows Phone
8 till late 2012?”
RIM: An Uncertain Future
And that leads to RIM, who it appears, is in dire
trouble as year-on-year sales have dropped by 43% for the last quarter, with
massive losses ($518m), massive redundancies (c. 5,000) and yet further delays
to BlackBerry 10.
To exaggerate their problems, the mobile comms
industry press and others, in the wider press community, are already talking
about how RIM customers can migrate to iOS, Android and even Windows Phone 8.
This sort of press coverage is a disaster for RIM and can only further
encourage its competitors to circle in; and, its once loyal customer base to
seriously think about migration.
Recognising how serious its predicament is, RIM reacted
by hiring in JP Morgan and RBC Capital Markets to look at its strategic options and how it can escape the
downward spiral of the company. Unfortunately, this sparked a round of rumours
about companies such as Microsoft wanting to acquire its patents, its handset
business and/or its network; and, even the possibility of RIM shifting
direction away from its own OS and adopting Windows Phone 8.
Who can accurately predict what might happen, especially
when you see Microsoft announcing its entry into the tablet market with Surface,
but denying that it will build its own mobile phones? To be fair though, it
would seem high risk for Microsoft to want support RIM in this way, especially
when it is investing so heavily in the emerging tablet market, when it is already
committed to supporting Nokia and, at the same time, about to launch various
flavours of Windows 8 (Windows Phone 8, Windows 8 RT and Windows 8/ 8 Pro).
Whatever happens next, for sure, the next two
quarters will be critical for RIM's long-term future. If it continues to lose further
market share, incur increased losses and, dare we say it, face further delays
to BlackBerry 10, then RIM possibly may not survive. The outlook, on the face
of it, appears more precarious than Nokia and what RIM really needs is a
shining white knight to emerge.
So, we ask the same two questions as for Nokia…
"Why buy a new, but dated BlackBerry smartphone when you can get the
latest and greatest smartphones from competitors like Samsung and Apple?”; or, “Why
wait till the BlackBerry 10 smartphones are released in early 2013?"
Other
Recent Developments: Further Heat in the Low-End Smartphone Market
Firefox Mobile OS
And today (July 2nd), to compound the competitive threats and
intense competition in the mobile phone market, Mozilla announced a new mobile
OS will hit the low-end smartphone market in 2013. With manufacturer support
from Alcatel and ZTE; and, mobile operator support from Deutsche Telekom,
Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and Telenor, the first
devices are scheduled to hit Brazil in early 2013.
The Firefox Mobile OS (sitting on top of the Android
kernel) is claimed to be a new, fully open, mobile ecosystem based on HTML5. This
allows all the applications to be written in HTML5, removing various middleware
layers. The idea is to optimize the platform for entry-level smartphones and offer
richer user experiences, thus helping to drive adoption across developing
markets. Not only is Android attacking Nokia’s traditional feature phone market
(and Microsoft’s future Windows Phone 8 potential market) but we have a new entrant.
The “Wild Card”: Windows 8
The “wild card” in all of this is, of course, the
success or otherwise of Windows 8; it’s a massive departure from Windows XP, Windows
Vista or Windows 7 in its “look and feel”. Gauging its success will be problematic
as there will be different dynamics meshing together that will dictate marketplace
acceptance.
Within the enterprise and SMB market there remains
a huge installed base of desktop and laptop XP users (anything up to 44%) and
so companies may finally bite the bullet and migrate to Windows 8, especially
as XP support finishes in April 2014. In addition, if business users like the Microsoft
Surface tablet (and OEM variants running Windows RT or Windows 8 Pro) then Windows
Phone 8 will carry this momentum into the mobile phone market. It all sounds potentially
positive but will consumers like Windows 8 in the same way as businesses? That’s
an unknown as yet, but it’s just possible.
However, if you take a worst case scenario and
business users and consumers alike don’t take to Windows 8 then that will have
a huge impact on Windows Phone 8.
Our view is that in the Enterprise and SMB market
users will be forced to migrate off XP and will transition to either Windows 7
or Windows 8; those already on Windows 7 (up to 42%) will mostly “pass” on large-scale
Windows 8 migrations knowing that Windows 7 has another 7 years of support left.
It also means that from launch, Windows 8 only has 18 months to convince XP users
to shift to a new and untried OS. Ultimately this suggests that there will be further
growth (albeit slowing) in the Windows 7 installed base for a further 2 years
or more, at the expense of Windows 8. Thus, we suspect that Windows 8 will
likely encounter a mixed reception but ultimately will be driven by the speed
of adoption of its touch-based UI on ultrabooks and tablets.
Conclusion: Room for Another Mobile OS?
So it seems, by
revisiting the original blog’s point, we have muddied the waters by looking at the
uncertainty behind the fortunes of Nokia and RIM; by highlighting the emerging
but increasingly intense competition in the low-end smartphone market; and,
introducing the uncertainty of marketplace acceptance of Windows 8. However, this brief snapshot of the mobile market cannot illustrate
more clearly how interconnected are the influences on market success; and, the brutality
of the mobile phone market to the complacent!
Consequently, our overall conclusion remains
consistent… Unlike other projections from analyst firms IDC and Ovum (IDC
predicts Windows Phone to have a 19% market share by 2016; and, Ovum predicts 13%
market share by 2017), we remain more pessimistic. The various analyst estimates
(May/June 2012) weigh heavily on Windows Phone success in emerging markets such
as China, Malaysia, India and Brazil where it can hopefully develop volume
sales based on low-end, smartphone positioning.
Regardless, Tech-Research’s opinion is that even
with Microsoft’s marketing muscle, which we must remember it has flexed before
with Windows Mobile, Windows Phone will find competition in emerging markets
extremely intense. The start point, from today, is a Windows Phone market share
that has remained stubbornly around 1.5% to 2% worldwide. If Microsoft can
achieve 13-19% market share in the smartphone market over the next 4 to 5 years
then it will evidently have done a good job! We remain to be convinced!
A snapshot of possible further
questions:
- Need more insight into emerging mobile markets like China or Brazil?
- What do different customers think about future mobile investments in Nokia and RIM smartphones?
- What tactics need following to minimize customer losses?
- What competitive tactics are most likely to work?
- What is the likely impact of Windows 8 RT and 8 Pro in the Tablet market?
- What strategies are Enterprise & SMB decision-makers looking at for XP migration and Windows 8?
If you want help answering these and other questions then why not contact us on:
+44 7710-573688
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