Microsoft just bought Nokia’s device and services business for $7.2 billion. Those areas of Nokia have retreated from €35 billion in sales in 2008 to €15.7 billion in 2012, according to company filings.
At the same time, Nokia has gone from being the most popular smartphone maker in the world to a distant third. From 2008 to 2012, Nokia squandered the most dominant market position the industry had ever seen—43.7% of global smartphone sales—and became locked in a competition for third place with Blackberry. In the first half of 2013, Nokia sold only 3% of all of the smartphones worldwide. Apple and Samsung sold a combined 47.4% of smartphones over the same period, according to Gartner.
Nokia’s feature phone business is a different story. The company has strong sales in emerging markets where lower cost and lower power-consuming devices dominate. In the second quarter of 2013, Nokia shipped 61.1 million phones (including feature phones and smartphones), accounting for 14.1% of the global market.
