Nokia Revises Mobile, Slights Apple
NEW YORK (
) --
Nokia
(NOK) - Get Report
says a flood of counterfeit phones from Asia and "other emerging markets" helped add about 120 million devices to its total handset market last year.
The news comes as Nokia revised its industry market share numbers to reflect the previously uncounted phones. These phones, in some cases, are made by low-profile manufacturers and carry the name Nokia and other major brand names, according to a Nokia rep.
|
For 2009, Nokia now says that including counterfeits and other small players, it held a 34% market share compared to the 38% it originally reported.
The revision does not include
Apple
(AAPL) - Get Report
iPod Touch sales, a category of mobile devices that Nokia says doesn't qualify as phones.
Apple chief Steve Jobs set off a high-level shouting match during his
by pronouncing Apple the "largest mobile devices company in the world."
Nokia, which sells more than ten times as many phones as Apple, was confounded by the claim. Jobs was referring to Apple's total mobile device revenue, which includes laptops.
Nokia, already under assault from
Research In Motion
(RIMM)
and
(GOOG) - Get Report
in smartphones, called Apple and Jobs
in a company blog post, and proposed to "set the record straight" with a true "apples-to-apples" comparison.
The blog did not offer any specific numbers to support Nokia's dominance claim, but based on the results from the most recent quarter, Nokia sold 127 million phones while Apple's best-ever tally hit 8.7 million iPhones, or about 7% of the Nokia total.
By its own definition, Nokia says a mobile device is something that's pocketable and used for mobile communications over a cellular network, according to the company rep.
But by any definition, Nokia's reign as phone king is under assault from all sides.
Nokia shares are up 14% in the past month, a slightly better increase than Apple's 13% blistering pace. On Friday, Nokia rose 2% to $14.83 in morning trading.
--Written by Scott Moritz in New York.
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