Android gobbles Nokia market share, could imperil Windows Phone 7

Microsoft has been looking to Nokia to save it from a Windows Phone 7 disaster, but on a call today, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop warned that Android has done serious damage to Nokia and may do worse in the future. Given that, Windows Phone 7 could face an even rockier road.

Nokia today came out today with sales forecasts "substantially below" previous forecasts.

The problem, in a word: Android.

On a conference call about reasons for the lowered forecast, Elop pointed squarely at Android. ZDNet quotes him as saying Nokia is being hurt in both China and Europe by Android. About China, he said this:

there's an indication of some very substantial movement in the growth of market share for Android, particularly in some technology areas where Nokia today with our current portfolio doesnt compete.

As for Europe:

We're seeing, for example, a large volume of Android devices really coming into the market. They're largely undifferentiated from one another, which is putting pricing pressure thereupon, which in turn affects the overall ranging decisions of the operators; so there's definitely pricing pressure going on.

How bad is it? So bad that in a statement, Nokia said it would no longer issue long-range forecasts for 2011:

Given the unexpected change in our outlook for the second quarter, Nokia believes it is no longer appropriate to provide annual targets for 2011.

All this, of course, is very bad news for Windows Phone 7. Microsoft has looked on Nokia as helping to save that struggling operating system. But in a turnabout, it now looks as if Nokia is looking to Microsoft to save it, instead. Computerworld reports:

Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop seems to have set his sights on getting a Windows Phone-based product out for the important end-of-year holiday shopping season, in order to help turn around the company's smartphone fortunes.

So Nokia seems to look on Microsoft as its life jacket, and Microsoft looks on Nokia as its life jacket. But one drowning person grabbing onto another drowning person won't save either of them.

Microsoft had looked to Nokia's sizable worldwide market share to help give Windows Phone 7 a rocket boost. But by the time Nokia Windows Phone 7 devices are finally here, months from now, it may not be much more than a minor kickstart. And that simply won't be enough to make Windows Phone 7 into a serious Android or iOS competitor.