First, Apple kicked Nokia out of New York, then European operations were curtailed, now comes word Apple will likely attack the cell phone pioneer in China, the hottest market for smartphone makers. A “drastic realignment” in that Asian giant’s mobile marketplace is expected later this year.
Although Nokia is now the No. 1 player in China, selling between 20 percent to 30 percent of the nation’s handsets, Apple is on the verge of inking deals selling the iPhone to the lion’s share of the country’s more than 600 million wireless users.
According to industry publication DigiTimes, a “drastic realignment” of China’s mobile market could happen as soon as the later half of 2011 or the first six months of 2012. Citing unnamed sources, the publication said Nokia will feel added pressure as Apple ink’s deals with the nation’s largest carrier, China Mobile, with 68 percent of the entire market. The iPhone maker is also in late-stage negotiations with China Telecom with 108.4 million subscribers or 12 percent of the market. The two deals are on top of Apple’s current partnership with China Unicom.
Nokia also needs to keep an eye open for the Android threat, where it has 50 percent of the nation’s wireless market. Samsung Electronics, HTC and Motorola Mobility are the top three Android-based mobile phone makers in China.
Apple recently announced earning $9 billion in China this year, with plenty of room to grow. China’s smartphone market is estimated at $70 billion.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
6 responses to “Nokia to Lose Ground to Apple Again – This Time in China”
The question has never been about demand. It has always been can Apple make enough iPhones to meet demand?
That’s a no, they can’t even maintain sales here…
Android Icecream Sandwich will compete with iOS 5 and iPhone 5 this Fall 2011, see here http://www.worldshotcake.com/g…
I just paiid $21.87 for an i P a d2-64GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $657 which only cost me $62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, http://to.ly/aUia