Buy Nokia
Yeah, so my Mom asked me about Nokia stock today. I've finally gotten her to buy Qualcomm stock. If she listened to me last year she would've doubled her money by now, but I still think there's a *lot* of growth in that company. I mean, every single 3G phone made is going to have QCOM tech in it and they're going to get cash whether they made the chipsets or not. And, of course, their chipsets are the best... so it's a complete no brainer for me. The markets are still thinking 3G is all hype so they're undervaluing the company IMHO.
Same thing goes for Nokia. The stock price is at a 13 month two year low. Damn straight it's a good time to buy. They had a bad quarter and they *still* sold one out of every three mobile phones in the world. I'm sure they've gotten the message and they're getting it back together with back-to-basic designs, are studying the markets like no other competitor is, engaging developers, etc. And that brand! Nokia is still Nokia. Corporations will start buying handsets in bigger and bigger quantities pretty soon, and it'll be from Nokia if for nothing more than that golden brand name.
There's definitely a lesson to be learned here. For the past year, fugly phone after boring phone was launched by Nokia and everyone just looked at each other and shrugged, "It's Nokia. They probably know what they're doing..." or "People like Series 40, it's comfortable to them" Yeah, right. It's like back in the bubble days when we all looked at each other when companies with no profits went public with huge evalutions. And we all looked at each other and shrugged, right? Well that's the lesson. If it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense.
Nokia's now going to drop the price across the board to make up market share. I think that's a good plan, because Nokia handsets are still quality handsets. Once you experience the ease-of-use and reliability of Nokia, it's hard to switch no matter how nice the eye-candy is. And then there's Series 60 - the most powerful, reliable easy to use handsets on the market. When they start pushing that OS down into more consumers hands, other manufacturers are really going to have problems.
I think Nokia can do it. I think their R&D, the investment in their own chipsets, focus on the enterprise and multimedia and general concentration on the long term is going to pull them through. Motorola and Samsung are kissing carrier asses and producing a million different handsets to see what sticks, but that's not what's going to win in the long run. What's going to win is developing an ecosystem around your brand and platform, and that's what Nokia (to me) is doing. The threat to this, of course, is that the carriers don't like it because it devalues their brand. But these guys are going to be nothing more than "cellular-based ISPs" in a few years anyway.
No, it's the platform, not the pipe, in the long run that's going to rule the day. That's why I'd invest in Nokia now.
-Russ