Nokia’s investors’s patience is growing thin as they still aren’t seeing the stock of the company rising after 2 years of going with Windows Phone 8, and they are urging the CEO, Stephen Elop, to reconsider his decision of going with WP only for Nokia’s smartphones.
The decision to use an untested brand new operating system for Nokia’s future phones, has left the company’s stock virtually identical to how it was when Stephen Elop, Microsoft’s former employee, took the CEO job at Nokia. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a terrible thing if Nokia’s stock price was high and they were making a ton of money and profit, but that’s not the case and their stock has been trading at under 3 euro/share for most of the past 2 years. Clearly, the investors don’t see Nokia coming back fast, anytime soon, by using Windows Phone only.
“You’re a nice guy … and the leadership team is doing its best, but clearly, it’s not enough,” one shareholder, Hannu Virtanen, told Elop. “Are you aware that results are what matter? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Please switch to another road,” he said.
I still believe Nokia, as a company, would’ve been smart to develop smartphones at the very least for both operating system. If they would’ve done that back in 2011, their decline would’ve been a lot less steep, and if they couldn’t have maintained their leadership over Samsung, they could’ve at least been a close second. Now, they are not even close to Samsung in smartphone sales.
If they wouldn’t have limited themselves to what is basically a niche operating system in the smartphone market right now, there would’ve have been a lot more room for growth for them. But it doesn’t seem like Stephen Elop wants to change course anytime soon, at least not until the board actually forces him to do it.
But knowing Nokia’s board, who seem to be used with complacency (they should’ve fired the old CEO a year or two at most after the iPhone was released, not 4 years later), I doubt they will want to get rid of him this year. It’s too bad, because I truly believe Nokia would sell a lot more smartphones, and be profitable a lot faster if they also sold some high quality Android smartphones (and not making Android a second class citizen on their phones, obviously).
[Via Reuters]