Finland is sometimes called NokiaLand because the company Nokia comes from Finland and due to the fact that many people in Finland have a Nokia phone. A recent study shows that Nokia´s market share in Finalnd is 86%.

For the third year running, the most popular phone was still the old classic, the Nokia 3310 with a 5% market share. In fact, the 56 most popular phones were all made by Nokia. At the high end of the range, the most popular phone was the Nokia N70. Nokia held an overwhelming 99% share of the smartphone market in Finland.

From the other manufacturers, Korean phone manufacturer Samsung held about 4% the market, Sony Ericsson 3%, Benq-Siemens 3%, and Motorola less than 0.5%. Other manufacturers made up 1% of the market and 3% of the phones in the study were not identified.

Nokia’s market share has hardly changed in the past three years. Samsung and Sony Ericsson have slightly increased their market share, while Motorola and Siemens have lost out, researcher Antero Kivi told the Finnish news agency STT.

According to Finnpanel 1,6 million Finns (older than 9 years) have a radio on their cell phone. You might say "that´s not much", but that is actually 36 % of the finnish population (in 2005 the figure was 17 %).

Other figures from the newlu released research say 16 % use the radio on their cell phone weekly. I was little suprised about that radio usage was most popular for kids under 15 years of age and when at the same time 60 % of 15-24 years old have a radio on their cell phone.

Well what does this mean? You propably know the song "Video killed the radio star"? Excellent song! Maybe we will have a new song "Cell phone resurrected the radio star :-)



* Finnpanel is owned by TNS Gallup Oy and A.C. Nielsen Finland Oy and is specialized in panel research focusing on Television and Radio Audience Measurement. The original research press release (in finnish). More about Finland (Wikipedia) or NokiaLand.

Martin Sauter interviewed me about the Wireless Operator Landscape in Finland. Visit Martin blog to listen to the podcast.

Last September Tamer Nakisci won the Nokia Benelux Design Awards with his Nokia 888 design. This morning I read in a local finnish newspaper (ITviikko) that Tapani Ryhänen, Head of Multimedia Devices Research, Nokia Research Center had said that bigger displays, touch screens and wearable-devices are a future trend. Ryhänen said to ITviikko that Nokia might launch some wearable-device during the next few years.

Nokia today announcent it will give new phones a name rather than a number, following the success of rivals with model names like RAZR, sliver, pebl (Motorola) and chocolate (LG).

What you will see coming from us in the future is not just a numbering system, you are going to start to see names that carry a meaning and are important to consumers," Keith Pardy, head of marketing at Nokia, said during a webcast from an Citigroup's investor meeting in New York. Reuters

M:Metrics has an interesting report that shows that there is a direct correlation between camera resolution and the use of photo messaging, as 44.3 % of people who own camera phones with resolutions exceeding one megapixel sent a photo over the network, versus a global average of 30.5 %. Another survey from the same company found that photo messaging is the most rapidly growing category of mobile content in the U.S.

tags: cameraphone

To put the fresh Gartner numbers in a nutshell you can say that Motorola takes market share from Nokia with its thin design phones (Razr and Slvr) that Nokia is missing.

Some fresh IDC data: The western European market for cell phones, smartphones and converged devices grew by 7 % year on year in the second quarter of 2006 as shipments reached 41.4 million.

Just a quick comment on the Motorola´s growing fast growing market share. Motorola’s market share has been growing since the Razr succes. If Motorola continues its fast growth in market share it could overtake Nokia in 2007. At least that´s what analysts has been saying.

The latest research from Canalys highlights the shift from handhelds to converged devices. Overall year-on-year market growth of all smartphone and smart mobile devices was largely unchanged from the previous two quarters at 55 percent, but converged device shipments (smartphones and wireless handhelds) rose 73 percent, while handhelds continued to slide, down 33 compared to the same period one year ago.