Huawei open to Nokia deal but says Windows mobile remains weak
Huawei muses on Nokia's future
From the Financial
Times:
Huawei would consider buying Nokia to help it become
the world’s leading smartphone maker, according to the head of the Chinese
telecom group’s consumer business.
“We are considering these sorts of
acquisitions; maybe the combination has some synergies but depends on the
willingness of Nokia. We are open-minded,” said Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei’s
consumer business group.
Mr Yu predicted that the smartphone market
would consolidate to about three or four companies – and warned that Microsoft’s
Windows phone platform used by Nokia as well as Huawei was “weak”. Huawei has
mostly adopted Google’s Android operating system for its
smartphones.
“Whether Windows Phone [will be] successful is difficult
to say – it has a very small market share. [Windows Phones] are weak but still
require a licence fee. That’s not good. Android is free.”
Even without
acquisitions, Huawei has become the third-largest manufacturer of smartphones by
volume behind Samsung and Apple, ...
From The
Register:
Growing its smartphone shipments by 94 percent
from Q1 2012 to Q1 2013 might not be enough to satisfy Huawei: it's reportedly
floated the idea of acquiring Nokia.
According to a report in the
Financial Times, the rising Chinese giant would consider buying the veteran
Finnish mobile phone vendor, but isn't impressed at its reliance on the Windows
Mobile platform. (...)
At the same time, Yu was critical of the “weak”
Windows mobile phone platform, adding that its license fee is a significant
turn-off from Huawei's point of view.
Personally, I
suspect that Huawei wants Nokia strictly for its patents, and would dump Nokia's
existing product line. Huawei already makes some very nice phones which compete
in the high end of the market, as well as having low and mid range models.
They've recently introduced what they describe as the world's thinnest smart
phone. They don't have much market presence in the US, but in the rest of the
world Huawei are a very big company with a well known brand name and people rate
their phones quite highly.
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