That's how you start in a market already dominated by competitors.

Just as a comparison, only Apple managed to sustain ~5% market share on the PC market since MS has dominated it. Entering the mobile market is very similar in difficulty to entering the desktop segment with a new OS.

The problem is that Apple still has a single digit or low double digit percentage of the PC market. And the only reason they can make it work developing their own ecosystem at that level of market penetration is by being a premium brand with high margins. Nokia's market share is currently at the opposite end of the market. Which is bad news for attracting developers, because developers won't want to target a small minority platform full of budget-conscious customers.

in the US. In Italy, the Nokia line is outselling the iPhone.

I Brazil, at least, Nokias are being heavily subsidized. Not only to the carriers, but salespeople are getting commissions straight from Nokia in order to push as many as they can.

Apple, Samsung and LG are not doing this.

Also in Brazil, everything Apple is VERY-VERY expensive, because of the taxation system.. so the market share for Androids and Nokia are bigger

why would the taxation system penalize apple more than nokia or samsung?

It's not like the latters are made in brazil. Does brazil have special punitive tax rates towards US based companies?

Or is it just that the local equivalent of VAT goes up fast with the phone price?

In Brazil taxes do not "penalize" countries, products or companies.

Right in the middle of the Amazon region there is a development zone where the majority of the electronics are made, in the country, by multinationals. It is called a Zona Franca.

When built in the country the import taxes, which represent the majority of the cost for imports such as electronics, these taxes are removed and make the good much cheaper.

It is the same with Xbox and PS4 in Brazil. An Xbox is 4 times cheaper than a PS4. If Brazil would be against USA or it's companies then it would be the reverse.

Hope I helped.

ps. Many people in country complain about the taxes but forget that when companies move their industries to Brazil, jobs, money and know-how stay there too improving the competitiveness. Sadly the vast majority of the population will look the price tag and complain without knowing the implications behind.

Tariffs definitely do penalize foreign countries/products/companies. Not to say they're a bad idea for Brazil and other emerging countries with large markets, but if everyone had such harsh tariffs, free trade and progress in general would suffer.

For your ps: on the other hand, just think what would happen if every country did the same thing.

Not everybody could do it.. only countries with big markets could have this privilege..

Small contries would get simply ignored by the industries, since its too much trouble..

So it would get reduced to: China, Russia, Brazil, US, Japan.. and if managed in block: Europa..

This policy from Brazil is not a bad one if you think that the only other possibility left for industrial growth(technology transfer) would be one of the cheap labor.. like what happened in China, South Korea and the Asian Tigers..

thanks, it was very interesting information.

> It's not like the latters are made in brazil

Actually, they are. There are Nokia, Samsung and LG factories in Brazil, as well as a tax-incentive zone in the Amazon region.

There were, once, local manufacture of Apple equipment (I have a Powermac 4400 from that time), but it didn't survive the takeover by NeXT.