Nokia's European market share reportedly halved in Q1 2021

The collapse of Huawei and Honor has left a massive opening in the European smartphone market. The likes of OnePlus, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Realme all cashed in last quarter and boosted their respective market shares, but HMD Global-backed Nokia failed to do the same.

Nokia failed to capitalize on Huawei's collapse

Counterpoint Research has revealed to SuomiMobiili (via NokiaMob) that Nokia accounted for less than 2% of the European smartphone market in Q1 2021 and saw its overall smartphone shipments halve versus Q1 2020.

The exact number of shipped devices hasn’t been released, but Counterpoint reported 1.7 million Nokia smartphone shipments for Q1 2020. If shipments did halve last quarter, it suggests that around 850,000 Nokia devices were shipped in Europe.

It’s worth noting that HMD Global only announced and release one new smartphone — the Nokia 1.4 — during the quarter. It chose to delay its fully refreshed budget and mid-range lineup until this quarter, so it’ll be interesting to see the Q2 2021 numbers once they’re released in July.

Unlike competitors which typically bet on impressive internal hardware, HMD Global is focusing its efforts on providing regular software updates and long battery life. Whether that’s enough to attract European customers will remain to be seen.