BillDay.com

Nokia Q2 numbers are out. In a nutshell:

• NOK shipped 78.4 million phones in Q2 2006 compared to 60.8 million units in Q2 2005
• Smart phone (Nokia Multimedia unit) revenues rose 37% to 1.89 billion euros ($2.36 billion)
• Average selling price declined to 102 euros ($127) from 105 euros, due to large volumes of cheap phones in emerging markets
• Sales rose 22% to 9.81 billion euros ($12.24 billion), from 8.06 billion euros Q2 2005
• Net profit up 43% to 1.14 billion euros ($1.42 billion), up from 799 million euros Q2 2005
• Global market share of 34%, down 1% from Q1 2006 but up from 33% in Q2 2005
• Gains in market share in Europe and Asia offset by loss of share in North America, South America, the Middle East, and Africa

Compare the above with Motorola’s results released the previous day:

• Motorola shipped 51.9 million cell phones in Q2 2006
• Sales in the cell-phone unit rose 46 percent to $7.14 billion, nearly two-thirds of the MOT total
• Shipped 50 millionth RAZR V3 this week (RAZR line launched Q4 2004)
• Sales rose 29% to $10.9 billion, from $8.4 billion in Q2 2005
• Net profit increased 48% to $1.38 billion, up from $933 million in Q2 2005
• Increased its global market share to 22% in Q2 of this year, up from 13% eighteen months again
• Motorola has enjoyed 7 consecutive quarters of market share growth, based largely upon the longevity of RAZR’s success

One has to wonder how Nokia’s withdrawal from CDMA development will affect things in coming quarters, especially with Motorola delivering some very interesting EVDO devices and doing everything right to support them (check out their Q Wiki). Clearly the short term trend is Moto gaining ground on Nokia. Whether or not this will continue and Motorola will retake the world market share lead it lost in 1998 is debatable. What’s clear, however, is that MOT and NOK are both pulling away from the rest of their competitors.

Is mobile handset design and marketing now a two horse race?