This fall prompted ABI's senior analyst Michael Morgan to question whether Nokia's bet on the Windows Phone platform will ever pay off.
"ABI Research believes that Nokia's Windows Phone strategy is in need of a serious change if it wants to remain in existence past 2013," he commented, in an article for Fierce Wireless Europe.
Same-sung
Of the 86.3 million handsets Nokia shipped in Q4 2012, just 6.6 million were smartphones.
Nokia's feature phone business may be performing well, but ABI believes that's a burning platform, noting elsewhere that the feature phone market is "stagnating."
The firm's take, however, sits uncomfortably with news Nokia bounced back into profit in January, with Lumia sales jumping in the run up to Christmas.
ABI's findings unsurprisingly show Samsung as the world's largest OEM, and note that Samsung's growth has absorbed nearly all of Nokia's losses in terms of handset and smartphone shipments.
Apple's market share, meanwhile, continues to grow, but at a rate that's barely above the growth of the overall market.
ABI Research believes that Apple will need to produce a low-cost smartphone if it's to outpace the slowing market and gain ground in China the world's largest smartphone market.
[source: Fierce Wireless Europe]
