Some Thoughts on Android & Nokia's Lost Oppertunity

After working on Nokia's Symbian OS for around 4 years, I've recently started exploring the Android platform from a technical architecture perspective. The more I explore, the more familiar it seems. One reason of course, is that below the Java layers - what is known as "native" software in Android - it's all regular C/C++ based embedded software on a Linux kernel. Maybe it seems even more familiar to me because my work in Nokia involved a little bit of Maemo/Meego integration also. Indeed, below the Java layers, once could theoretically mix & match code from AOSP (Android Open Source Project) and Meego, and yet have a device that works!

The picture below is an over-simplified system architecture diagram, but helps explain a very high level view of Android.

Android architecture from developer.android.com

The Java layers, which I refer to are the top two layers in blue. The rest (libraries & kernel) is regular C/C++  software running on a Linux kernel. 

Analysis of Nokia 4Q 2011 results

Results Summary
21% Year on year decline in revenue, 155% decline in earnings per share (IFRS), and 8% decline in mobile device volumes. Things certainly dont look too good for Nokia, especially considering these are Q4 results (the Christmas quarter). As the interim report states...

"On a year-on-year basis, the decline in our total Devices & Services volumes in the fourth quarter 2011 was driven by significantly lower Smart Devices volumes. Mobile Phones volumes were approximately flat year-on-year. "



Specifically, "Devices & Services" business saw a 29% decline in net sales, 11% decline in operating margins. The decrease in margins are quite likely due to the shift to Windows Phones OS, which increases the BOM if each phone (licensing royalties to Microsoft). At least I see no other explanation, as gross margin is very simply revenue - cost of goods sold.

Revenue & Net Profit Trend
I tracked Nokia’s revenues & profits over the last 3 years, and the chart below shows the trend from 2009 to 2011.

Nokia 2009 to 2011

The two peaks in the blue revenue line shows the seasonal phenomenon in the electronics/computer industry where Q4 sales are always much higher than previous quarters. It is interesting to see that there was a good peak in Q4 2010, but it was followed by a quick decline in Q1 2011 onwards. This is most likely due to the 11-Feb-2011 announcement of moving away from Symbian, which reduced the demand for Symbian smartphones overnight. As Nokia says...
"Following the announcement of our strategic partnership with Microsoft in February 2011, our strategy included the expectation to sell approximately 150 million more Symbian devices in the years to come. However, changing market conditions are putting increased pressure on Symbian. In certain markets, there has been an acceleration of the anticipated trend towards lower-priced smartphones with specifications that are different from Symbians traditional strengths, which has contributed to a faster decline of our Symbian volumes than we anticipated."
While the revenue is increasing sequentially (i.e. increasing from Q3 2011 to Q4 2011) it falls short of what Nokia was selling in 2010, and even in 2009. This is probably quite serious for the company... it’s performing worse than it was 2 years back.