Nokia remains the top dog in the global handset market.
But it’s no revelation the company has struggled in the U.S. smartphone market.
That could change, thanks to rumors of a potential alliance between Nokia and Microsoft.
In a letter that was published in the Financial Times, analyst Adnaan Ahmad of Berenberg Bank in Hamburg, Germany urged the chief executives of Microsoft and Nokia to form a partnership.
The New York Times reported that Adhmad advised Nokia to abandon its Symbian operating system and use Microsoft Windows Phone software.
Nokia’s shares have climbed over recent speculation that the companies would align, but Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi told the Times that a partnership would not be an inevitable success.
“Windows Phone 7 has been disappointing and Microsoft is not sexy to the consumer from a mobile phone perspective," she told the Times.
In an online note Friday, Neil Shah of research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics said Nokia shipped nearly 500 million handsets and 100 million converged devices worldwide last year.
“The Finnish vendor sold more handsets than the next three largest brands combined and it remains the hardware king of scale," the analyst said. “But Nokia’s presence in the high-growth smartphone and 3G tablet segments of North America remains limited and these sub-categories of mobile and portable computing sorely needs Nokia’s attention in 2011."
