Rise and fall of nokia- the mobile pioneer

Rise and fall of nokia- the mobile pioneer

Timeline:

Market dominance of nokia phones

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Rise of the MOTO Razr

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Apple's Smartphone invention  

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Innovating with Lumia

Remember Nokia's legendary handsets, we always got that famous signature logo, holding hands. Basically  it was hand-holding Nokia carrying people through the mobile revolution. And, of course, more than 12 years ago when birds didn’t get angry, there was the mobile game to rule them all: Snake. Nokia were by no means the first company to release a commercially available mobile phone, but it was the first to do it really well, and with true mass appeal. Back in the 1990s there weren't these other big brands. Nokia were so dominant. People didn't talk about what brand, it was just about the number, 3210, or whatever you had. They took users on a journey.

Nokia’s fall was swift. According to figures from analyst firm Gartner, Nokia's smartphone market share in 2007 was a dominant 49.4%. In subsequent years, it was 43.7%, then 41.1%, then 34.2%.Many blame this decline, at least in the initial stages, on Symbian, the firm's mobile operating system. "They missed the importance of software," Mr Wood says.

"Nokia make great phones, they still do. They went through this incredible decade of innovation in hardware, but what Apple saw was that all you needed was a rectangle with a screen, and the rest was all about the software."

Windows insurgence

It took just a few years for Nokia phones to go from being the must-have handset in your pocket, to being the long-forgotten handset. For starters, Nokia's flagship smartphones already use Windows Phone, Microsoft's operating system which, although still way behind its competitors, is at least gathering some modest momentum.

Its acquisition with nokia was to improve the agility of innovation in mobile.

While most of the world was gobbling up Nokia's steady menu of candy bar-shaped cellphones, consumers in North America began eyeing flip phones, handsets with a clamshell design.

Motorola, mounting a comeback of its own, led the charge for flip phones, and cemented the trend with the debut of the ultra-slim Razr in late 2004. It remains one of the most successful cellphones ever, reigning as a top seller for nearly three years.

 

Nokia's N95, was hailed by the company's fans as the ultimate showcase device. 

Ultimately, Motorola failed to build upon the success of the Razr. Nokia's decision to abandon the US market didn't have any immediate consequence; it continued to gain market share around the world and hit its peak until the second half of 2007. That was after the release of Apple's first iPhone. Apple led the charge in turning the smartphone into a consumer device

Apple's iOS touchscreen-based software revolutionized how people interacted with their phones. Still, Nokia refused to jump on the touchscreen bandwagon, again showing its inability to adapt to new trends. It waited a year after the original iPhone Nokia attempted to dress its Symbian platform with well-crafted hardware, using premium materials and high-end camera technology. But the company knew Symbian couldn't be its long-term software option, and was readying a next-generation platform, Meego, as its successorRoughly a year later, during the debut of the Lumia 920 , Elop boldly touted the phone as the most innovative in the industry.The Lumia 920 featured an ultra-sensitive touchscreen that your fingers could swipe even if you had gloves on. It was one of the first phones to popularize wireless charging.Nokia then launched to unveil its first touchscreen phone , nokia 5800.

Then came the beginning of the end for Nokia as a well-known brand in the hands of millions.