Young people are tired of the iPhone, a Nokia executive told a U.K.-based consumer tech and gadgets website.
And many youths aren't pleased with Google's operating system that powers many smartphones, according to the executive, whose employer has teamed up with Microsoft Corp. to incorporate the competing Windows Phone operating system into Nokia's new line of Lumia smartphones.
"What we see is that youth are pretty much fed up with iPhones," Niels Munksgaard, director of Portfolio, Product Marketing & Sales at Nokia Entertainment Global, told Pocket-lint in an interview. "Also, many are not happy with the complexity of Android and the lack of security. So we do increasing[ly] see that the youth that wants to be on the cutting edge and try something new are turning to the Windows phone platform."
Android has been making momentous inroads – the operating system represented 52.5 percent of global smartphone sales to end users in the third quarter, up from 25.3 percent in the year-ago period, Gartner reported last month.
Yet Allen Nogee, a principal analyst with In-Stat, said early adopters and more tech-savvy users have tended to purchase Android-powered devices. One of the challenges with Android, he said in an interview, is that each version of Google's wireless platform operates differently.
"Android has been much more of a hodgepodge for users than iPhone," the analyst said.
Apple's iPhone is one of the backbones of Apple's success; net sales of the iPhone and related products and services totaled $47.1 billion in the 2011 fiscal year, representing an increase of $21.9 billion or 87 percent over the prior year.
"The iPhone continues to grow in popularity and increase in numbers. It's becoming more and more available in other countries, emerging countries," Nogee said.
The analyst conceded, however, that younger people are more willing to change devices. "I would agree the younger generation particularly 18 and under does like change," he said. "They tend to follow what their friends have. They are not closed to switching to a different platform."
Whether that will give Nokia and Microsoft an opportunity to pounce on the iPhone remains to be seen. The second quarter was a low point for Nokia – the world's largest handset manufacturer –but the Finland-based mobile-phone giant has been turning itself around, according to Gartner, the research and consulting giant. "Heavy marketing from both Nokia and Microsoft to push the new Lumia devices should bring more improvement in the fourth quarter of 211," Gartner noted last month. "However, a true turnaround won't take place until the second half of 2012.
In-Stat forecasts that Android will control slightly more than half (50.8 percent) of the global market share for smartphones in 2012 and that Apple's iOS platform for the iPhone will rank No. 2 with 16.7 percent share. Windows Phone will hold 11.2 percent share, slightly below BlackBerry (12.6 percent), according to the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based research and consulting firm.
"This is very speculative, because these figures can change on a dime," Nogee cautioned. "Although Microsoft is aiming to gain market share in the low-cost smartphone area (under $150), I see Android dominating there. I also think that Microsoft will struggle a bit in both the US and in Europe."
