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29 March 2024

Nokia remains mobile market leader in UAE

Published
By Staff

Finnish electronics giant Nokia maintained its position as the dominant mobile phone market leader in the UAE, controlling nearly half the market in the second largest Arab economy, despite massive gains by smart phone makers.

Although Nokia’s share is far below its level a decade ago, the company remained by far the largest mobile phone supplier to the UAE which is one of the fastest growing cellphone markets in the world mainly due to its high per capita income.

Official data showed Nokia, which accounted for nearly a third of the global mobile phone market in 2012, controls around 50 per cent of the mobile handsets used in the UAE, far above the share of all other major mobile handset makers.

The figures by the Telecommunications Authority (TRA) showed Nokia, BlackBerry manufacturer RIM of Canada, Apple (IPhone) and South Korea’s Samsung have been involved in a tough war to grab a bigger share the market in the UAE, which also has one of the world’s highest mobile phone penetration ratios at around 170 per cent.

In a rare report, TRA said Samsung and BlackBerry were on equal footing, controlling 10.7 per cent each, following Apple with a market share of 8.4 per cent. Sony Ericsson appeared to be losing ground as it share has shrunk to only around 1.5 per cent after the Swedish giant was one of the UAE market leaders along with the US’s Motorola.

“A few years ago, the mobile phone market scene in the UAE was quite different… Nokia controlled nearly two thirds of the market while Motorola and Sony Ericsson came on its heels…Samsung’s share has seesawed over the years while BlackBerry and virtually did not exist,” a market analyst said.

Another interesting fact revealed by the TRA report is that Nokia’s budget phone 1,280 is the most popular handset in the UAE, accounting for nearly 3.08 per cent of all mobile handsets registered on the authorised networks in the country.

It was followed by iPhone 4S (2.93%), Nokia X1-01 (2.9%), Nokia E5 (2.61%), iPhone 4 (2.58%) and the Samsung SIII (2.11%), according to the report.

As for smartphones, iPhone 4S emerged as the most popular handset, followed by iPhone 4, Samsung SIII, iPhone 5, BlackBerry Bold 9900 and BlackBerry Bold 9780.

The report also showed that the most commonly used mobile phone operating system in the UAE is currently Symbian with around 50% market share, followed by iOS (13.8%), BlackBerry (10.7%) and Android (10.4%).

“The report provides an interesting snapshot of the UAE’s mobile telephone market share which has very distinct characteristics in terms of consumer adoption. It also reflects a dynamic ecosystem in which both feature phones and smartphones are emerging as the future growth engines of the telecommunications industry,” TRA Director General Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim said.

“The TRA continuously monitors the telecommunications landscape in the UAE, and a core function of our role is to keep consumers informed about the state of the market. We view the public as genuine stakeholders in our mission to become one of the most advanced technology hubs in the world.  Studies like this are therefore very valuable and it is our intention to continue to provide industry insights as much as possible.”

At the end of 2012, the UAE had 13.77 million GDM subscribers, making it among the countries having the highest mobile phone users relative to its population.

Etisalat, the oldest GSM service provider in the UAE, had just over seven million subscribers while the rest is controlled by du.