Nokia warns market share may drop again

Nokia this morning sent notice that it was again issuing a warning and says that it will lower its estimates for both its own cellphone shipments as well as the larger industry for the fall. The company had previously recorded a drop to 38 percent share for its summer quarter but now says there is "insufficient visibility" for it to say whether its market share will increase or even remain flat over the three-month span between October and December, suggesting the possibility that its market share will drop again.

The Finnish company primarily attributes the uncertainty to the weak economy and attempts to mitigate the concerns by noting that it's already implementing job cuts and has a relatively low number of fixed expenses that let it trim costs without hurting its core business.

Nokia also believes it won't be alone in the future and anticipates both the total cellphone industry shipping less than the estimated 330 million phones for fall 2008 and for world shipments to dip by as much as 5 percent for all of 2009 versus the ultimate total for 2008.

The forecast arrives just as Nokia suffered its first year-on-year shipment decrease in the summer credited largely to the absence of its own credible alternative to the iPhone or to BlackBerries. However, Nokia is optimistic that it can regain smartphone share in particular and expects an overall increase in 2009 helped in part by its first touchscreen smartphone, the N97.

Filed under: iPhone, industry, mobile phones
Other story tags: BlackBerry, Nokia