Nokia Shows Strong Growth While Apple Declined Sharply: Statcounter Data

By Vamien McKalin email: v.mckalin@mobilenapps.com | Dec 27, 2012 10:00 AM EST

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Nokia, the once dominant force in the mobile industry, has experienced some growth over the last 30 days, according to Statcounter data, while Apple managed to slide despite having new iDevices on the market.

Statcounter data usually represents a proxy of the install base of devices that are in the hands on consumers. So when their data show Nokia growing at a smooth pace and Apple slowly falling below the line, it should be taken seriously, if even relatively.

The data Statcounter gathered, shows that Android over the past 30 days has grown by 0.021 percent per day on average. This information was compiled from Nov. 26 to Dec. 25. So what is being shown here is not old and could represent what the future entails if things continue down this path.

The surprising loser, according to the data, is Apple. The company went on a huge decline, dropping 0.056 percent per day. Apple began the month with 24.87 percent market share, but experienced a sharp decline and ended with 21.98 percent. It is clear than the iPhone 5 is not performing in ways Apple would have hoped, and it is finding it difficult to stand toe to toe with the likes of the Nokia Lumia 920 and Android-based devices from Samsung.

Android began the month with 32.98 percent share, and ended with 33.72 percent, a growth of 0.021 percent per day. This small growth from Android could be signaling that the operating system is reaching its peak and is actually slowing down.

The company that saw the largest growth is Nokia, which is quite surprising when you take into consideration that it is the lesser known operating systems driving Nokia's growth the most, and not Windows Phone. Windows Phone managed to move up from 0.91 percent to 0.96 percent, an average of 0.0014 percent growth per day. With the amount of push Nokia is giving Windows Phone, it is shocking the platform didn't grow much further.

Amazingly, the soon-to-be-dead Symbian platform managed to grow from 10.41 percent to 11 percent, an average of 0.01 percent per day. Despite its obvious future somewhere in the heavens for dead platforms, consumers are still purchasing Symbian-based devices, probably due to how cheap they can be had for these days.

When it comes to the main platform that is driving Nokia's growth, not surprisingly, it is Series 40, the platform that can be found on Nokia's Asha line of feature phones that are marketed as smartphones in emerging markets. S40 grew from 13.94 percent, to 15.5 percent, an average of 0.029 percent per day.

If you do the math, you'll see that Nokia platforms combined grew from 25 percent to 27.2 percent, an average of 0,041 percent per day. This combined growth of Nokia platforms is twice that of Android, which could pose a problem for the platform trying to compete with Nokia in emerging markets.

If this growth continues for Nokia for another year, it is possible the company could regain its spot as the top mobile phone manufacturer. However, to become the top smartphone manufacturer again, the Windows Phone platform would have to grow substantially, which can only happen if Nokia and Microsoft do a better job of raising awareness of the platform.