Nokia CEO: we are years behind rivals

Incoming leader Stephen Elop sends incendiary memo outlining company's failures

Nokia's recently appointed chief executive has blasted his new employer for giving rivals the chance to overtake as he prepares an overhaul of the company's strategy.

In an internal memo leaked to news and reviews site Engadget, Stephen Elop compared Nokia's position to that of a man standing on a "burning platform", who must decide whether to jump off. He claims that "there is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected".

Elop (pictured) points out that, since 2008, Apple has grown its share of the $300-plus mobile handset market from 25 to 61 per cent.

"They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range," he said.

The Nokia man marvels at how quickly Google has also been able to muscle in on the Finnish firm's terrain.

"Android came on the scene just over two years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable," he said.

In the lower-end market, Elop opines that Chinese OEMs are grabbing market share from Nokia in emerging markets. The world's largest phone maker has fallen well behind its rivals, he added.

"While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Nokia? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time," said Elop. "At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions. But, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind."

Elop reveals that the UK is one "traditional stronghold" where Nokia is on the wane.

"Our brand preference has slipped to 20 per cent, which is eight per cent lower than last year," he explained.

On Friday, Nokia is to reveal its strategy to transform the company's fortunes. Elop stressed that the Finnish giant needs to begin to look at the market in terms of ecosystems, not just handsets.

"The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things," he said. "We're going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem."