7 Reasons Nokia Phones Get No Love in U.S.

[woodyear99]

It's true the Nokia brand just aint that popular in the US....

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/nokia-phones/

Nokia is the worldwide king of cellphones. But don’t tell that to U.S. customers. Nokia’s market share in the United States is on the decline, down to 8 percent last year, from 15 percent two years ago.

“Nokia missed a number of handset trends in the last few years — thin phones, clamshells, touchscreen devices, applications,” says Ross Rubin, an analyst with the NPD Group. “They have been pretty much out of everything.”

And that’s odd, given Nokia’s global dominance. Apple’s iPhone may get talked about more and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry devices may be must-have executive jewelry, but four in 10 cellphones sold worldwide last year were made by Nokia. Nokia sold 97 million phones in the first quarter of the year, nearly twice that of its closest competitor, Samsung.

But American customers are not finding much to love about Nokia.

It isn’t that Nokia is uninterested in getting its phones into the hands of more American consumers. The company has repeatedly said North America is a significant market. And analysts agree that Nokia cannot afford to stay out of this market.

[Spazosaurus]

I dont particularly care for Nokia phones after mine crashed and burned after 2 months. Ask anyone I was their biggest fan, but not anymore. Samsung is now my new favourite in terms of hardware and software. I've heard great things about thier implementation of the Symbian OS and I strongly suspect that my next phone would be a Samsung, hopefully an Omnia 2 or Omnia HD.

[Arcmanov]

You got a lemon.  I've almost exclusively used Nokia phones for the last 8 years, from the bulky 5120 in 2001,
to the 3250, and new 6120, and many other models in between.  Not one of them have ever 'crashed and burned'.  I still want one of those new N97s, but at 700 US...definitely won't be getting one in a while.

I'm sure lots of trinis would have owned a 'me too' (Nokia 1100), or the venerable Nokia 6230 (I still have mine).
Nokia is still meh phone hoss, even though I now use a BB Curve.  I still use Nokias as GPRS modems.

Fiyah bun Apple.  I'll take a proper smartphone over a fashion accessory any day, so I can, you know,
do some actual work.

[Spazosaurus]

No one is denying Nokia's toughness, but that's in the "me too" segment. I had a Nokia 3360 that went through some seriously seriously SERIOUSLY tough warzone like treatment and still remained totally functional up until the very end of the TDMA era.

The particular model that I had though seemed to be indeed a lemon. Though other models like the N95 8gb isnt without its faults as my gf's own has lost several of its buttons and suffers from intermittant memory lapses (internal memory isnt always recognised by the phone)

These experiences are enough to turn me off of the Nokia high end segment for a while. Their hardware has been steadily declining in terms of its cutting edge factor ever since the N95. They would announce this awesome phone no but it will only release 6 or 8 months after its announced, which by that time, the specs would be outdated. It happened with the n96 and now the n97 where Samsung just come out of nowhere and release a superior handset (Omnia HD) which is actually available.

Although the prices of those phones (read around $700us) are a bit out of what I deem to be "My reach", i'd much more willingly pelt out for a Samsung Symbian handset with its better UI and more powerful specs.


IMO, Sammy has the most technologically advanced phones in the world, closely followed by Sony, but I've got little love for Sony phones.

Agreed @ fire bun apple on the whole.

[/$0.02]

[Philosophical45]

i'll stick to my nokia, had a fair share of nokia's.... 1100, 1200, 6030, 6230, N80 & N82... no problems at all, my 6230 still standing strong, and my nokia n82 with 16gb of storage is like my lil pocket laptop...

My future phone may also be nokia, only if they offer a feature set greater than that of the Idou. But from my experience with the brand, i trust it and will most likely stick to it.