Originally Posted by Zee_Bukhari:
“Not every company which uses Android is raking it on. Samsung is pretty much the only company, Nokia were just too slow moving to the smartphone business.”
You might be correct that Nokia would end up having similar problems that many Android manufacturers are having today, but it would have been nowhere near where Nokia is now by NOT having adopted Android.
If Nokia had adopted Android early on, and used its expertise to create good looking phones, with great cameras, audio and so on - I firmly believe it would got to where Samsung got, and possibly at the expense of Samsung that wouldn't have had such a free run.
We will obviously never know, but Nokia was riding high for so long and while it was beginning to slide through many poor management decisions, had management not been so inept (including bringing in Elop) then I am certain the outcome would have been more positive.
Every manufacturer is now having problems because we've reached near saturation point in most markets. Even emerging markets are slowing down. It's likely to happen to Apple in due course, as it can't keep growing.
Okay, so Apple had a great year this year because of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. But that's mostly because it upped the screen size and iPhone users had been crying out for a larger screen for some years. Now they've come out, I don't think that the 's' models will see anywhere near the same level of sales.
Of course Apple will still do well. It's the only company you can buy from for an iOS device - compared to plenty of choice on Android (and loads of new players all sharing the same market), but smartphone sales across the board will start to fall.
One thing that will save manufacturers in the future will be producing good quality hardware (that matches demands from the consumer) and getting the software right too.
Take BlackBerry, which could so easily fall any day too. I do believe if it decides to drop BB OS and go to Android, and add Google Apps, and add in some of its own software (like the Hub) then it could actually do well. It has the expertise to produce something with a hardware keyboard that there's still (IMO) a market for. It also still has a brand that's likely worth something to a lot of people still, even if the teenagers have long since jumped ship leaving just the business users.