It wasn't going to be too long before it actually happened. The time when the mobile phones and the computers converged into a single device. Just another proof for the same.
Via - AllAboutSymbian and original article @ Communities Dominate Brands: So Nokia is world's biggest computer maker in 2008
The article is very long, and AAS recommends going through it once. Am doing so right now, you should do.
Some quotes -
Mainstream phones excluded? With them, what would have the numbers been!!
This is a very long post, if you want to know the authors thoughs on the topic, you better read it from his website itself
Via - AllAboutSymbian and original article @ Communities Dominate Brands: So Nokia is world's biggest computer maker in 2008
The article is very long, and AAS recommends going through it once. Am doing so right now, you should do.
Some quotes -
I included all PC sales, all smartphone sales, all stand-alone PDA sales, and estimated also mainframe and mini computer sales into the total, and arrived at a total computer sales figure for the last four quarters (from October 2007 to September 2008) of 465 million. Note that PCs account for 300 million of those, so when we add the smartphones we are going about 50% bigger in the overall picture. But I think it is a fair measure to include smartphones (see below).
I also was very generous with Apple, I not only added their official numbers for Macintosh PC and notebook sales, and iPhone sales, but also the iPod Touch is another equivalent "pocket computer" and could be considered a PDA just as easily as a media player. Because it includes the ability to download applications and otherwise is a valid computer, only very small, I am including it.
Apple does not release iPod breakdowns in sales, and no analyst is supplying them either. So I made a very rough estimate - and simply because there are four models of iPods available (Touch, Classic, Nano and Shuffle) - I attributed one quarter of all iPod sales to the Touch. I am pretty sure that is way too much, considering that the Touch is at the top end of the price range and costs nearly five times as much as the cheapest Shuffle - but with these numbers Apple would be fourth biggest computer maker
Nokia numbers are only the smartphone sales as reported by Gartner and Analys. So the mainstream Nokia phones, from low cost phones to featurephones, are excluded. The above count is only for smartphones. Also I have not included the Nokia non-phone devices (their media players and internet tablets) even though these could also be included, because I don't find those numbers reported. With them the Nokia number would be marginally bigger still
Mainstream phones excluded? With them, what would have the numbers been!!
FINALLY, WHY IS A SMARTPHONE A COMPUTER
This is a very long post, if you want to know the authors thoughs on the topic, you better read it from his website itself