Nokia is struggling. Windows Phone is struggling. Put them both together and there’s nothing but doom in store for both companies. Luckily for Nokia they still have a lot of cash in the bank. Even after being “irrelevant” for a few years. Right now Windows Phone is not even at 10% market share worldwide, while Android is taking up around 70% of that market share. So why won’t Nokia jump ship to Android? Well according to an analyst by the name of Pierre Ferragu at Bernstein Research, he thinks they should test the Android waters soon.
Right now Nokia is “in bed with” Windows Phone. Basically they have an exclusive contract with Microsoft to make Windows Phones. Now it’s not that their phones are bad, in fact they are built like tanks and have great hardware. The problem here is software. It was reported yesterday that Windows Phone 8 just surpassed 100,000 apps. In comparison to Android, that’s about how many Twitter apps we have.
Ferragu is pointing out that Nokia’s balance sheet is “in a rather tight net cash position.”Also that the company’s finances are at the risk of being pushed to the limit due to Nokia’s specific exposure to the feature phone market and the very slow adoption rate on Windows Phone.
If you take a look at the image above, you’ll notice that Microsoft took a slight dip in the US market share. Going from 3.2% in the 3-month period ending in February 2013, to just 3.0% in the 3-month period ending in May 2013. That is a really small drop, but when you are sitting at just 3% market share in the US, every little bit counts. Meanwhile Android is sitting at 52.4% in the US.
Ferragu goes on to say that “I wouldn’t be surprised to see Nokia adopting Android as its new low-end platform by year end.” That wouldn’t surprise me either. Nokia desperately needs something like Android. Many Android users have had Nokia phones in the past, so they know how great their hardware is. Then you through Android 4.2 or possibly Android 4.3 on top and you’ve got an instant win. But Nokia will need to market their phones if they have a chance against Samsung.
Do you think we’ll see Nokia enter the Android world by the end of the year? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.