Nokia likely to stage smartphone comeback: report

While growth of Samsung Electronics and Apple in the global smartphone market is expected to slow this year, Nokia is being forecast to resurface as a global smartphone brand, according to an analysis by US market researcher on Wednesday.

Trendforce said in a report that Nokia, a Finnish firm once the world’s largest provider of cellular phones, is seeing a clear future growth this year. Nokia’s partnership with HMD and FIH Mobile that started in 2017, recorded a production volume of 11.5 million units in its debut year.

Nokia’s annual production volume for 2018 is estimated to grow by more than 70 percent, possibly exceeding 20 million units.

South Korean smartphone maker Samsung will remain the top for smartphone production in 2018, and is expected to continue the success of its budget A and J series, the market researcher said.

However, he said that Samsung’s smartphone production volume was estimated at 300 million units this year, a decrease of 5 percent year-on-year, and its market share was also projected to decrease from 21.9 percent last year to 20.3 percent this year.

Because Apple is set to launch three new flagship models in the third quarter of this year, and expand into the Indian market, its production volume is expected to rise 6 percent.

Apple will remain in second place with a 15.7 percent market share after Samsung.

The overall growth momentum in global smartphone market will remain weak this year due to lower demand and fewer replacement purchases, Trendforce said.

“Faced with a continuous rise in the costs of upstream components, downstream mobile phone vendors have to re-consider the pricing or adjust the specification of end-products to cope with the cost pressures,” the report said. “The distribution of market share among the major players is expected to remain generally the same as last year.”

The researcher estimated the global smartphone production for 2018 at around 1.5 billion units, a 2.8 percent annual growth, down from its previous forecast of 5 percent.

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)