Comments on: Watch Out Nokia: LG Sells 1M Cheap Androids in 40 Days

By: Raymond Ramone

Raymond Ramone — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 08:23:32 +0000

You know what I still think and I firmly believe that the ANDROID OS is not that polished and the apps are not that solid.
I’m not a fanboy of APPLE but their iOS is exceptional and very well managed. I think the WinPhone 7 is going in this direction too and will be successfull in mid 2011. Just because Wozniak told this or that means he is always right.

By: Yorch Arthur

Yorch Arthur — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 22:34:47 +0000

Well Nokia sells 1 million smartphones per day, so in 40 days Nokia sold 40 million smartphones.

By: It’s Gonna Be an Android World and We’ll Just Live in It: Tech News «

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:37:35 +0000

[...] But the point is, Android is ascendant by almost every measure including Millennial’s ad data. The platform last month eclipsed iPhone-only ad revenue according to Millennial and now appears poised to leave iOS behind in overall impressions. Android requests have gone up 65 percent month-over-month and since January, have grown by 2,182 percent. Apple requests are up 12 percent month-over-month and have increased by 32 percent since January. Android impressions should continue to grow especially as more Android tablets like the Galaxy Tab go on sale. And as Kevin pointed out, cheap Android phones like the LG Optimus are also selling like hotcakes. [...]

By: Master

Master — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 11:47:38 +0000

Right… you do know Symbian is a terrible operating system right? I mean Nokia has some neat stuff in the works, but they need to commercialise it first!

By: honkj

honkj — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 22:17:59 +0000

I don’t know where these million buyers have been, but there are Dozens and Dozens and Dozens of Android phones that sell for 1 cent on Amazon.com…. all only a few months out from release because of the horrific fragmentation of the Android market.. no one is buying any particular Android, so all these Android phones go to the bargain bin within months of introduction..

Nokia is already history, but what is funny is Android is destroying the market for Android… every month there are a dozen of new handsets, rendering sales of older models to only a few… killing the manufacturers…

so Google brought us very stupid manufacturers.. ones that will soon cut every corner to stay in business… not just LG, they are cutting each other’s throats, and the consumer is left with half baked pieces of kludge..

mean while Apple sits in it’s corner with a big smile on it’s face…

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:02:59 +0000

Good thoughts, Maurice. My “ignoring the competition” comment came about because the common response is “but Nokia sold X number of smartphones”, i.e.: focusing on what Nokia is doing rather than the competition. I agree that the company has owned the lower-end market for some time, however.

I disagree with your statement that we haven’t seen a profitable Android manufacturer aside from Samsung though. HTC is killing it with profits, and Android has financially saved Motorola’s device division. Just two examples.

In light of that, however, there is a valid point in what you and Mark have said about the profits, long-term. I’d be curious to know how much handset makers are earning directly from Google through search revenues for using Android – if it’s a significant amount (or will be), it could change the business model in terms of profits.

One last point about the transformations brought about by Qt and MeeGo: Nokia really hasn’t realized them yet and there’s no guarantee it will. MeeGo is still very rough around the edges based on the video out of the recent MeeGo conference. The potential is there, yes, but let’s not suggest the potential is a lock. ;)

By: maurice

maurice — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:59:07 +0000

Very easy to agree with Mark (higher up in the thread) and his bottom line. Anybody and their sister can sell volumes but how about profitably and in the long run? Of course, LG and other Android manufacturers now and then make forays into the lower end with some models but can they do this in a sustained fashion? Look at their margins. Android remains a race to the bottom and I have a feeling LG, SE and MOT (and Samsung) will experience this very painfully next year.

Ignoring competition, as Kevin put it, seriously? No, Nokia have for a long time been beating the crap out of their competition in the low end and this is not about to change (white label manufacturers notwithstanding). I’m aware logistics and distribution do not seem to interest people anymore but, nonetheless, scale advantages are very real and do play very much in Nokia’s favor both in the low and high end, as scale allows NOK to make a buck even with its most outdated s60v5 entry-level smartphones (which it still sells by the boatloads) and as Symbian^3 hardware ramps up and takes significant share from competitors from this Q4 onwards.

Long term, only profits and scale matter. There is no way around the fact that Symbian allows lower costs/ hardware requirements than Android ever will. Thus Nokia can trickle down higher-end features to their cheap smartphones very profitably. I would wager they will wipe the floor with their Android competitors next year. We have yet to see a profitable Android manufacturer, with the exception of Samsung, who are right now being badly beaten in some markets by Nokia’s S^3 phones.

By the way, and no offence, I find it truly baffling that the American commentators in general cannot see the obvious – how quickly the competitive landscape is now changing in Nokia’s favor, e.g. with the transformations brought about by Qt and MeeGo. Nokia plays a very long-term game and the ball is now rolling really fast.

By: Nvidia’s Biggest, Best Chance in Mobiles Is Now: Tech News «

Nvidia’s Biggest, Best Chance in Mobiles Is Now: Tech News « — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:35:01 +0000

[...] exclusive pictures of the LG Star and reports that it won’t have the hobbled performance of LG’s $30 Optimus line: instead, the dual-core Tegra 2 will shoot the Star to the high-end with the capability to record [...]

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:09:45 +0000

Yeah… except Nokia have already stated that lower end Symbian devices will transition towards the 120 Euro mark and below and, given Nokia’s scale of production, they’re a lot better equipped to do that than LG are.

So… uh… no.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:56:16 +0000

Huawei is almost at that price point already: $150 for the Ascend in the U.S. on a no-contract, prepay plan. It’s just a matter of time.