I skipped over the BRICS part, but it doesn't change the equation. Anyway meaningful way you slice it Nokia was "way behind", even if they still had a legacy in a few markets that primarily used dumb phones (or "feature phones").
I couldn't find BRICS-specific numbers or I would post them too, but I'd like to see any reputable source that they had anything close to a 60% marketshare in a non-dumbphone category.
(some other numbers I had were also from Kantar, unfortunately their site is TERRIBLE)
Note that in 2012 Brazil STILL HAD 22% of new Smartphones being Symbian.
Also, several other countries in 2011 still had some good Symbian numbers (like first or second place).
Suddenly stopping selling Symbian to switch to WP7 made no sense, even worse when claimed it was to make it different (when other manufacturers ALSO made WP7 phones).
I just wish I could find the 2010 and 2011 numbers for all the BRICS again, but today that is seemly very hard :(
I think what I take issue with is referring to any device running a Symbian OS as a "smart phone". Many Symbian phones were just "feature phones", and this is probably (though I can't prove it) especially true in BRICS countries. It's not really a fair comparison. We've got little reason to believe Nokia's fate would have been any different in those markets as they developed than it was anywhere else.
I couldn't find BRICS-specific numbers or I would post them too, but I'd like to see any reputable source that they had anything close to a 60% marketshare in a non-dumbphone category.
Edit: Found this link for China. Hard to believe the the other countries would swing the shift so dramatically. http://www.phonearena.com/news/In-China-Android-is-blowing-a...