Nokia, Apple, Samsung and Yappy.

I was talking with the great Dermot Hanrahan the other day. Dermot is the man behind Electric Media, a digital sales house, and was a shareholder with me in Club Internet, an isp that ultimately floated on Nasdaq.


He was also CEO of several Radio stations and currently is a shareholder of some (notably Radio Nova) as well as sites (such as entertainment.ie). So he knows his onions in terms of traditional media and new media.


His latest venture, Yappy, is a mobile play regarding smart mobile advertising. I've blogged before on the strength of mobile http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012_04_01_archive.html so I am a fan.


But he pointed me to the slide above (from BI), and others, which visually shows the ad opportunity.


But it also brought home to me the changes in this space and in particularly, the Nokia story. 


Remember Nokia? Finnish company who dominated handsets for many years? In 1998 it overtook Motorola (remember Motorola? we all had one) as the largest phone maker in the world but Nokia pooh-poohed smartphones. And god knows I've blogged about companies like these, many many times before.


14 years later, Nokia is now losing money and its rating by Standard & Poor's was cut to "junk status" last weekend. Hot on the heels of a Fitch's downgrade earlier in the week leading to a 15 year low stock price. Nokia??!! Jeez.


Last week Korean Samsung took Nokia's 14 year old crown as the world's biggest seller of mobile phones and what surprised me, is that Samsung leaves Apple in its wake. The Galaxy Note and Galaxy S2 outsold the Iphone by 10m units in the first 3 months shipping 44m smartphones V 35m iphones.

Mad isn't it?


But good news for Google who's OS (operating system) is at the heart of Samsung phones (Nokia have adopted Microsoft's Windows). Of course, the issue is price which drives Samsung's volumes.


But basically Samsung and Apple control the handset market. And more Samsung than Apple.


Samsung launches it's Galaxy S next week in London but of course, here comes the Iphone 5 launch too. So a bit of a battle but good news for users as each manufacturer tries to push out the boundaries of technology.


So, the upshot of all of this will be new applications, new features, new social media integration and the mobile taking over as the smart device of choice. It makes sense, because it's easy to carry, easy to use and you have it with you all the time. Constant internet access.


Dermot's right with Yappy. 

Mobile advertising and content is about to explode.