According to foreign media 65438+1October 24th, Nokia plans to terminate the dividend plan, and its record of continuous dividend distribution to shareholders in 143 will be interrupted.
According to the observation of the reporter of National Business Daily, this information revealed that Nokia may have been in trouble, and its way out may be the market exploration started by betting on WP platform after it abandoned the Symbian system of 14.
In this regard, some people in the industry are not optimistic and think that its operation behavior is unwise. "If Nokia continues to upgrade Saipan and keep pace with the times, it may help Nokia turn over." So, what will Nokia's tomorrow be like?
Will terminate the dividend plan
Nokia decided to end the dividend or to survive. After all, the company's revenue has been declining for several consecutive quarters.
The company claims that canceling the dividend plan will "ensure that the company's strategy is flexible enough."
According to the company's financial report provided by Bloomberg, in the third quarter of 20 12, its revenue was only $9.056 billion, down 29% year-on-year.
Bloomberg dividend forecast, if the company does not stop paying dividends, Nokia will have to pay a total of 750 million euros for shareholders, but the company's net cash in the fourth quarter is only 440 million euros.
Before the arrival of the era of smart phones, Nokia has always been the dominant player in the global mobile phone market. The reporter found that since 1996, Nokia's market share has been in the first place and has remained in this position for a long time.
Maybe he stayed in the position of the boss for too long. After Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, Nokia did not have enough vigilance, and its market share was gradually eroded by rising stars such as Apple and Samsung.
In order to survive in the market, in the first half of 20 1 1, Nokia decided to abandon its Symbian system and cooperate with Microsoft to use its Windowsphone as the operating system of its new smartphone "Lumia".
At the same time, the company has taken many measures to cut costs. For example, in June last year, Nokia announced the implementation of a global scale 1 10,000 layoffs plan; At the end of last year, it was announced that its office building in Finland was sold to Exilion for 654.38+0.7 billion euros.
At present, Nokia, which lags behind its competitors, has high hopes for Lumia smartphones, but the cruel sales record still worries Nokia's future. According to IDC researchers, in the fourth quarter of last year, Lumia's global sales only rose to 4.4 million units, while the sales of Apple and Android rose to 47.8 million units and 65.438+0.36 billion units respectively.
Saipan was defeated by "PC-like"?
65438+1On October 24th, Nokia confirmed in the fourth quarter financial report of 20 12 that the 808PureView mobile phone released last year was the last Symbian mobile phone developed by the company, which means that the Symbian era has officially come to an end. Saipan, which once led the mobile phone operating system, is now on the market, which makes people feel embarrassed.
In the third quarter of 2006, the market share of Symbian system in the global mobile phone field surged to 72.8%, while IDC data showed that the market share of Android system in 20 12 was 68.3%, ranking first in the mobile operating system. In other words, the Symbian system at its peak has a higher share than the current Android system.
In 2008, Nokia acquired Saipan, and Saipan officially became Nokia's own system. This should have been a good opportunity for Nokia to build its own platform ecosystem in the mobile phone field, but the actual development is going backwards.
Since then, Apple's iPhone, the corresponding IOS operating system and Google's Android platform were introduced to the market in 2007 and 2008.
At that time, Nokia was still mired in the leader's madness: in the face of new technologies, it was not self-transformation, but stagnation, while Apple's IOS system rose with the hot sales of iPhone, iPad and other products, while Google's Android camp grew rapidly under the banner of free. Since 2009, companies such as LG and Ericsson have gradually withdrawn from the Saipan stage. 20 1 1 1 Samsung completely abandoned Saipan and became the last straw to crush Saipan system. Since then, only one mobile phone manufacturer in Nokia has been using Saipan system. At the same time, in the first quarter of 20 1 1, Saipan's market share was surpassed by Android for the first time, and Nokia's smartphone market share dropped from 33% in 20 10 to 2014% in that year, far lower than that of Apple and Samsung.
Xie Wen, the former president of Yahoo China, analyzed the reasons for the failure of Saipan system in an interview with National Business Daily, because it failed to keep up with the pace of changes in the mobile phone industry. Specifically, in 2007, iPhone redefined the mobile phone industry. Since then, there has been a PC-like phenomenon in the mobile phone ecosystem. At that time, Saipan system still kept the definition of the mobile phone industry at the initial mobile phone level.
Bet on WP platform
Just after Nokia abandoned Saipan, it bet on WP platform. On 2011April 2 1, Microsoft and Nokia issued a joint statement, saying that "we have signed a formal agreement and will start to contact operators, developers and other partners to help the industry understand the benefits of joining this new ecosystem. At the same time, we will continue to develop Nokia products on the WindowsPhone platform, and plan to start batch shipment on 20 12. "
According to the agreement, during the agreement period, Nokia will receive a "platform support fee" of $250 million from Microsoft every quarter. Nokia also paid Microsoft the patent fee for using WindowsPhone. The specific amount is determined by the shipment of Nokia mobile phones, but there is a minimum. At the same time, the total amount of platform support subsidies provided by Microsoft during the agreement period should be slightly higher than the sum of software patent fees. For this cooperation agreement that the industry is concerned about, when the reporter of National Business Daily communicated with the relevant person of Nokia China, the other party replied: "The details of specific cooperation are not convenient to disclose."
According to Nokia's latest financial report, this situation will be reversed with the obvious growth of Lumia series smartphones with new WP8 system. The data shows that Lumia smartphones shipped 4.4 million units in the fourth quarter of 20 12. At present, Nokia's software usage fee has exceeded Microsoft's platform support subsidy of $250 million per quarter. This means that during the remaining period of the agreement, the total minimum patent fee of Nokia may exceed the total platform support subsidy.
It is generally believed in the industry that this is not conducive to the healthy development of Nokia, which is still in the exploration stage of WP8 mobile phone market. What's more noteworthy is that Nokia's practice of betting on WP platform is also generally considered as an "incomprehensible strategy" by the industry.
Give up Saipan, can WP platform save Nokia? Zhang Yi, founder and CEO of Ai Media Consulting, believes that giving up Saipan is not a wise choice. "Saipan has obvious advantages. China, Europe and America used to have very high market share, and users' awareness of it was relatively high. Secondly, Saipan's durability, power saving and other features are exactly what the current Android system does not have, which is a huge advantage; If Nokia continues to upgrade Saipan and keep pace with the times, it may help Nokia turn over. "