It’s not hard to see exactly why Nokia is exasperated. Smartphones right now account for 15% of world wide cellphone shipments. This share is anticipated to go up up to forty five per cent by the year 2013. HoweverNokia Smartphones slice of the high quality marketplace dropped coming from 44 to thirty-five % between the second and 3rd quarters of last year, based on research company Canalys. The actual aim is to increase sales of their high-end appliances by means of leveraging the highly-priced 2008 acquisition of electronic mapping company Navteq. The actual move is exciting, yet incorporates a touch of desperation. Nokia wishes to stop rivals which include Google as well as The apple company from obtaining more of the market share. The new Nokia navigation solution betters any competitors existing offers. It’s free of charge, it covers seventy four destinations and installs the map information straight on the actual device. In comparison, users of Apple’s iPhone have to pay close to$70 to obtain an equivalent application via Dutch navigation device maker Tom Tom. Google’s solution is provided for free, however is is just available to the relatively few people of their Android os and solely within North America. It also needs an active cell connection.Nokia is having to pay an expensive price just for this technologically superior offer. Until now, the technique was to bill cell phone users pertaining to navigation services and also to promote Navteq’s electronic maps to auto makers and competing manufacturers of navigation devices. Any mapping revenues had been welcome, after Nokia paid over eight billion dollars buying Navteq, a massive forty times revenue at the time. The offer regarding free navigation will inevitably eat directly into Navteq’s revenues. True, these were only two per cent of Nokia’s overall sales in the 3rd quarter. But Nokia will find it difficult to keep ahead of competition within the map-reading conflicts. Google is likely to broaden the availability of their own chart offering inside the year and free navigation may rapidly become an industry standard. Nokias free maps on their own aren’t going to be sufficient to elevate Nokia to the market placement they desire to be in but it is a excellent step in the proper direction.