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Nokia, Motorola pull away from the competition

Nokia Oyj and Motorola Inc, the world's two largest cellphone makers, both increased their share of the global market in the second quarter, widening their lead over competitors including Samsung Electronics Co and Siemens AG.

Nokia's global share rose to 31.9 percent in the second quarter from 30.4 percent in the previous three-month period and 29.6 percent a year earlier, Stamford, Connecticut-based researcher Gartner Inc said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.

Motorola's market share rose to 17.9 percent from 16.8 percent in the first quarter. Samsung's share slipped below 13 percent and Siemens' dropped below 5 percent.

"If you want to win market share, design your products well and have a good pricing," said George Wu (吳裕良), who helps to manage the equivalent of US$32 million in equities, including Motorola and Samsung shares at Invesco Taiwan Ltd (景順投信). "Samsung appears to have slowed down a lot in new products and the designs are not unique."

The largest handset makers are gaining market share as Germany's Siemens exits the business and smaller rivals fail to keep pace with heightened competition. Nokia has cut prices on low-end phones and added higher-resolution cameras and new designs to maintain revenue growth and win market share.

Samsung `losing out'

"Nokia and Motorola are breaking away from everyone else," Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner's UK office, said in a telephone interview. "Samsung is losing out."

Global mobile-phone unit sales rose 5.5 percent in the second quarter from the previous three months, Gartner said. The researcher reiterated its estimate for global sales of 779 million units this year, compared with 674 million last year and 520 million in 2003.

Unit sales at Nokia rose 31 percent to 60.8 million in the quarter from 46.4 million a year earlier, Gartner said.

Motorola, the world's second-biggest handset maker, sold 34 million phones, up from 24.6 million a year earlier.

"Motorola had a really good quarter with continued success with its Razr phone, while Nokia had a better mid-tier proposition than last year," Milanesi said. "Nokia was leading in all regions except Japan and North America, where it is still struggling."

Nokia, which has a long-term target of a 40 percent market share, has reduced prices on some phones and plans to introduce 40 new models this year to recoup market share. Ten of the new phones will be so-called third-generation, or 3G, handsets, which allow users to hold video calls.

Samsung's market share fell to 12.8 percent from 13.3 percent in the previous quarter, further widening the gap with Motorola. Samsung's market share was up from 12.1 percent a year earlier.

Emerging markets

"At the moment Samsung is not playing in the low tier of the market," Milanesi said. "If it wants to continue to increase market share it will have to change strategy. Emerging markets will become more and more important."

LG Electronics Inc had a market share of 6.5 percent, up from 6.1 percent a year earlier and 6.2 percent in the first quarter.

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd overtook Siemens for the first time in the second quarter, Milanesi said. Sony Ericsson had a 6.2 percent market share, compared with 5.5 percent in the previous quarter and 6.6 percent a year earlier.

Siemens' share fell to 4.7 percent, its lowest level since 1999, from 6.9 percent a year earlier and 5.5 percent in the first quarter, Gartner said.

After racking up more than 500 million euros (US$615 million) in losses from phones in the past year, Siemens decided in June to sell its mobile-phone business to Benq Corp (明基), Taiwan's largest mobile-phone maker.
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