days of great connections between Nokia and Samsung. First of all, the splendid closure of the Finnish company last Friday on Wall Street (+6,71%), on the rumors that it would be aimed precisely at its Korean rival, after the favorite to take over the company in the midst of a crisis seemed to be Microsoft.
Nokia has been going through an unprecedented crisis for some time: since the launch of the iPhone, it has lost a total of 70 billion euros in capitalization, and just in the last few weeks it has been overtaken by Samsung as the largest seller of mobile telephone equipment in the first three months of the year.
The Koreans, increasingly market leaders (they even overtook Apple in the smartphone segment), sold 86,6 million units in the quarter (20,7% global market share) against 83,2 million for Nokia, which saw shrink its global market share from 25,1% to 19,8%. Resulting in dramatic first quarter 2012 results: turnover -30%, losses of almost 1 billion euo (929 million).
The main cause seems to be that Nokia, which continues to lead the low-end market, has not been able to compete on new technologies, from smartphones to tablets. Although there has recently been an attempt at a reaction, with the market launch of the Asha 305, 306 and 311 models, all low cost (the price ranges from 63 to 92 euros) but with some characteristics comparable to those of the iPhone. But above all, the great redemption of the historic Finnish company, which could actually appeal to its rivals, is the (alleged) superiority of the latest jewel, the Nokia Lumia 800, compared to the Samsung Galaxy S3.
This is the conclusion to which the Finnish giant seems to want to reach, following an event organized in the last few hours in London, where passers-by, in possession of a smartphone made by other manufacturers, were challenged to carry out some simple operations with the own device. Specifically, it would appear that the Samsung Galaxy S3 performed worse than the Nokia Lumia 800, one of the first models equipped with the Windows Phone operating system, among those made by the manufacturer, during operations such as updating the status on some social networks (Facebook and Twitter), as well as sharing photos as soon as they are taken.
The Lumia 800 costs around 350 euros, while the 900, which represents the top of the range, costs around 600 euros. Despite the excellent performance and affordable prices compared to Apple and Samsung models, the Finns managed to ship just 2,2 million Windows Phone devices in the first quarter of this year. The sale now seems mandatory, and Samsung is at the window.
Read also Bloomberg
