MUMBAI: Ending Nokia’s lead in the global mobile phone market, Samsung has surpassed Nokia’s phone sales in the first quarter of the year.
According to a Reuters poll of analysts on an average Samsung has sold 88 million mobile phones from January through March, surpassing the 83 million which Nokia sold in the quarter. The report states that this is the first time since 1998 Nokia was not the world leader in mobile phone sales.
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Nokia has struggled for several years in the smartphone race but its dominance in the lower end of the market has allowed it to keep its rank as the world’s largest mobile phone maker. The fall of the Finnish firm has been rapid over the last few months.
CCS Insight head of research Ben Wood said, “After 14 years as the largest global mobile phone maker, getting knocked off the top spot will come as a bitter blow to Nokia. In contrast it will be greeted with euphoria by Samsung – they’ll be dancing from the boardroom to the factory floor.”
Nokia became the world’s largest mobile phone maker in 1998 when it overtook Motorola, at a time when Samsung had just entered the industry. It controlled around 40 percent of the market for years before Apple’s iPhone was unveiled in 2007, booming the smartphone market.
Nokia is currently undergoing a major restructure phasing out its Symbian line of smartphones in favour of a partnership with Microsoft that has produced a line of Lumia smartphones.
