Nokia cuts prices as battle for market share in handsets hots up
Nokia has increased its market share for handsets from 38.4% to 40.9% according to second quarter data from CCS Insight and reported in an article in the Times yesterday. The intense battle for market share is resulting in periodic price wars and the economic downturn seems to have precipitated another one - Nokia is reducing prices by up to 10% .
The mobile phone handset industry is best described as an oligopoly. In the second quarter of 2008 the leading five manufacturers accounted for 83% of world sales.
Nokia 40.9
Samsung 15.3
Motorola 9.4
LG 9.3
Sony Ericsson 8.2
The global mobile phone market grew by 12.3 per cent year-on-year in the first half of 2008 with shipments reaching 584 million units - the economies of large scale production in this kind of industry must be absolutely enormous. The power of the brand and the impact of achieving lower costs per unit are two of the key competitive drivers that impact on consumer prefereces.
Credit crunch lies behind school closures
Few sectors of the economy are immune to the impact of the credit crunch and the market for independent education in the UK is no exception. This week six school closures have been announced and the reality is many of the smaller private schools are under intense financial pressures as a new academic year looms.
read more...»A new era of investor activism?
Matthew Taylor from the RSA considers what might be behind the growth of shareholder activism. Some interesting insights here for students wanting to broaden their understanding of the principle agent problem arising from the divorce between ownership and control in modern businesses.
“We are entering an era of investor activism. There are at least three broad shifts that will compel investors to enter the market as more than merely consumers.”
The Yahoo - Carl Icahn relationship is definitely one worth following!
