Hasta La Gadget!

Nokia has been rumoured to be preparing a Windows Phone-powered phablet for many months, to expand the upper echelons of its smartphone portfolio and battle Samsung’s Galaxy Note line (the latest of which, the Note 3, was unboxed only this week). Images purporting to depict a palm-stretching handset carrying Nokia’s branding have also cropped up online before now, but today prolific leaker @evleaks has posted a press image in Nokia’s typical style.

The image shows what’s evidently a larger than usual Windows Phone, with enough screen real estate to display 11 x 6 rows of icons (vs the 7 x 4 icons that the 4.5 inch Lumia 925 accommodates). The other notable feature is the gently protruding rear camera which looks to be the same as the 925′s PureView-branded 8.7MP lens — so not, in other words, the 41MP ‘true PureView’ Lumia 1020.

Nokia hasn’t officially confirmed its phablet launch plans, but the pattern of an increasing flow of leaks is consistent with other leaky Lumia launch trajectories (such as the Lumia 1020). It’s certainly no secret that Nokia has been weighing up getting into the phablet space on Windows Phone — and doing so for a long time. Back in February 2012 the company told TechCrunch that it was “looking closely [at the mid-size tablet market] and looking to see whether it will catch on”.

In the event, Samsung has continued building momentum in the category, while smartphone screens generally have inflated in size to try to keep up with the trend for bigger phones.  Meanwhile Nokia has faced an uphill battle trying to sell its smartphones in a market dominated by Android and iOS. Indeed, it’s been such a struggle for the company that, at the start of this week, it confirmed it would be throwing in the towel by selling its Devices & Services unit to Microsoft for $7.2 billion and licensing its brand name for use by Redmond on mobiles and smartphones.

That transaction is not due to close til the first quarter of 2014, though, so Nokia has a few more months of pushing phones ahead of it. The Windows Phone phablet is named in @evleaks’ tweet as the Nokia Lumia 1520 and includes this year’s date — indicating a 2013 launch, which suggests Nokia will be launching the device, rather than letting Microsoft do the honours.

Getting into the phablet making-game — even at this late stage — is one way for Nokia to try to make its devices stand out against the iPhone, which has remained sub-phablet sized, despite Apple increasing the screen size of its current flagship iPhone 5 to 4 inches (up from 3.5 inches). But it’s not going to help Lumia stand out against Android, as many Android OEMs have been ploughing the big phone furrow for some time. As well as the Galaxy Note line (and Samsung’s other phablet brand, Mega), a Nokia phablet would compete with phablets from the likes of Sony, LG and Huawei.

Add to that, Apple continues to be rumoured to be testing bigger screen iPhones – albeit, testing different form factors is simply due diligence in such a competitive market as smartphones. It remains to be seen whether a phablet-sized iPhone will end up going into production — a Reuters report has previously suggested Apple is considering a 2014 timeframe for that. Meanwhile Cupertino of course has its iPad mini and full fat iPad to cover off the larger form factor tablet space in its portfolio (Nokia is rumoured to be lining up a Windows RT tablet too — doubtless on its soon-to-be-phone-owner Microsoft’s instructions).

Returning to the Lumia phablet, at the end of the day, a larger screen is not what Windows Phone needs to lure consumers away from Android and iOS. It needs more developers to make better apps — but with Android dominating market share and iOS still leading on app monetisation there’s precious little reason for developers to prioritise Microsoft’s OS.

And, from the consumer perspective, Windows Phone remains a solution looking for a problem. Android and iOS continue to be successful because of their apps focus and app-centric UIs. Just offering something different is not in itself enough of a reason for choice-spoilt consumers to care at this point — as the failure of Facebook’s Android launcher/app replacer, Home, also underlines.

According to a report from a couple of days ago, Microsoft held a somewhat realistic view of the Windows Phone market share, believing that come 2018, they expect Windows Phone to command about 15% of the market. However it seems that the IDC holds an even more pessimistic view and according to a recent report released by the company, they believe that Windows Phone will only command a 10.2% market share by 2017, a year shy of Microsoft’s own predictions, although we doubt a 4.8% jump would be very realistic.

Their report notes that they expect Windows Phone to steal some market share from Android, thus weakening Android’s position which would fall from 75.3% to 68.3%. iOS’ market share is still expected to rise, and this is possibly due to the company making inroads with cheaper devices like the iPhone 5C which would appeal to emerging markets such as China. IDC’s predictions about BlackBerry do not seem too optimistic and sees the company’s market share drop from 2.7% to 1.7%, with the believe that the company will continue to exist albeit in enterprise and/or security circles.

IDC: Windows Phone Market Share Expected To Hit 10.2% By 2017 original content from Ubergizmo.

It was just the other day that Microsoft announced that they would be acquiring Nokia’s cellphone business. Of course since Nokia is hardly the only company that manufactures Windows Phone devices (there’s HTC, Samsung, Huawei, just to name a few), we’re sure some are wondering what these companies have to say about the deal. When reached out for a comment by AllThingsD, Samsung did not have anything to say, but HTC replied with a, “We are assessing the situation and have no comment at this time.”

Interestingly it had been rumored that HTC was considering a HTC One version with Windows Phone 8 on board, although another rumor had suggested that HTC would be moving away from the Windows Phone platform, although we’re not sure if it was because HTC had caught wind of the possible acquisition, or if the company just wanted to concentrate on the Android operating system. In any case Microsoft has since stated that the Windows Phone operating system would continue to be licensed out to other manufacturers, although with Microsoft now having the ability to manufacture their own smartphones and having access to Nokia’s patents as well, we’re not sure if other manufacturers will have much motivation.

HTC Still “Assessing The Situation” After Microsoft-Nokia Deal Was Announced original content from Ubergizmo.

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Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform currently does not command the largest market share in the market, although they are growing steadily, albeit slowly. With Microsoft acquiring Nokia’s cellphone business, will this improve their Windows Phone efforts? Well Microsoft appears to be somewhat cautious at predicting Windows Phone’s growth in the future, and according to their Strategic Rationale presentation, the Redmond company has revealed that they expect the Windows Phone platform to command a market share of 15% in 2018.

2018 is a pretty far off and 15% does seem a little low, at least when compared to iOS and Android’s numbers, and with Windows Phone commanding 8.2% market share in Europe as an all-time high, we think Microsoft could get there sooner, but we guess it’s better to err on the side of caution just to be safe. Microsoft also expects the smartphone market to grow to about 1.7 billion handsets by 2018, so 15% of 1.7 billion doesn’t seem too bad, right? What do you guys think? Is 15% by 2018 a little too low, or do you agree that 15% is a more realistic number?

Microsoft Aims For 15% Market Share With Windows Phone In 2018 original content from Ubergizmo.