The Admob data IS relevant to Nokia

Admob just released some data about mobile web usage. It shows that Apple is the market leader in mobile web usage with 40% of traffic coming from iPhones and iTouches. You can read the article about the data here.

Some people have claimed that based on this it's wrong to say that Apple has a 40% market share of smartphones. Well, that may be, but I would definitely say the data is relevant to Nokia, maybe even more relevant than the positive data showing an increase of Nokia smartphone market share.

The data on smartphone market share says that Nokia is still clearly in the lead with 43% of the market, for example this blogpost by the writers of "Communities Dominate Brands" states the facts pretty clearly.

However, Nokia's strategy is to become a service provider more than a handset maker. The actual handset is becoming a commodity, it's nothing more than a touchscreen that can communicate with the outside world in different protocols.

The important thing is what you can do with it, ie the Apps (calling is an app as well). Also the content is of course important, what you read and so on, for example twitter and Facebook. We don't actually use the phone, we use the apps inside of it. So the apps are important, and all the innovation is now done in the apps. That's where the money will be in the future - Ads, Games, Apps...

The Apps are created by developers, and the more users for Apps, the more monetization possibilities for developers, which also means more innovation. Here Apple is the clear leader, and the fact that it dominates the mobile web market is the evidence. The appStore has also paid off.

So clearly Apple is in a situation where Nokia would like to be - a content and service provider.

I also think that the markets where Nokia dominates now, for example China and Africa, will follow suit in adopting iPhones, if Nokia isn't successful in developing an ecosystem like Apple's that just works. The N900 is a good start, and I'm very eager to see how far it gets Nokia. I can't understand the lack of innovation around the N900 though. Again, Nokia is just concentrating on what you have in your hand, not what people do with it.

So don't come telling me that Nokia is the winner because they're selling the most handsets in a commoditized market with falling margins. I know they don't feel like winners.