The New York Times: Nokia's Microsoft's One-Year Results and Challenges Coexist

On February 29th, a year ago, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), Jo Harlow, head of Nokia’s smartphone division, introduced the analysts and journalists attending the conference in the conference hall. The company cooperates with Microsoft. Just a few days before the opening of the 2011 MWC conference, Nokia and Microsoft announced the establishment of cooperation in London. However, because the two companies were eager to reach an agreement to occupy a place in the highly competitive mobile computing field, the two parties did not have any authoritative legal agreement at the time except for the cooperation promise.

However, one year later, the cooperation between Nokia and Microsoft exceeded the expectations of both parties and exceeded the expectations of many insiders. Nokia CEO Stephen A. Elop said in an interview at this year’s MWC conference that cooperation between Nokia and Microsoft has progressed smoothly.

Achievements:

Nokia introduced two Windows devices in 2011: the high-end smart phone Lumia 800 and the mid-market smart phone Lumia 710. Nokia said in January this year that it will launch the Lumia 900 LTE version in the United States.

On Monday, Nokia released the Lumia 900, a 3G version, and the Lumia 900, an LTE version that first landed on the Canadian market. In addition, Nokia also introduced the Lumia 610, which is 30% lower than the Lumia 710. At the same time, Microsoft stated that by March this year, the Windows Phone app store will enter 28 countries including China.

Terry Myerson, vice president of Microsoft’s Windows Phone division, said that Nokia’s new mobile phones, which cover all price points, will also make Windows Phone app stores cover more countries. These two initiatives will increase the global market share of Windows Phone handsets by 60%. So far, the Windows Phone mobile phone market has been mainly concentrated in the United States, Japan, and Western Europe.

Haro said that Nokia and Microsoft have developed strategies to open up the United States and other markets in the world. The two companies divided the R&D and production of Lumia equipment in five regions: San Diego, Beijing, Taiwan, Finland, Salo and Tampere.

challenge:

However, the United States is still one of the most difficult markets for Nokia to overcome. Mark Newman, analyst at Informa Media and Telecoms, a British market research organization, said: “Nokia’s brand influence in the United States has long been worse than before. The big problem Nokia faces is the US market.” Nokia said that by the end of 2011, Lumia With sales of more than 1 million mobile phones, Newman believes that this performance is not bad, but "has not left a deep impression."

Although Nokia ranks third in the market share of smart phone operating systems, its share of the top two is very large. Nokia announced last year that Windows will replace Saipan as the company’s main smartphone operating system. However, the market share of the Windows platform is only 1.7%, and this includes Windows Phone products made by manufacturers such as Nokia, HTC, and Samsung.

Analysts believe that Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobile will have a significant impact on the Windows platform. Google bought Motorola Mobile for $12.5 billion last year. If Google will shape Motorola Mobile as a globally important Android handset manufacturer, then Samsung, the current largest Android device manufacturer, will naturally choose another operating platform, perhaps it will fall to the Windows camp.

However, Younghee Lee, senior vice president of Samsung’s mobile communications division’s global market, spoke at the MWC conference, saying that Samsung and Google still maintain a “strong partnership”, but she also pointed out that Samsung will still use Android at the same time. Windows and Samsung's own operating system Bada.