Although I doubt 2012 will mark the end of the world, it certainly marks the end of the NOKIA era. More than a decade ago, the Finland based tech company was the biggest cell phone vendor in the world; but as of 2012, this statement no longer holds.

NOKIA’s new Lumia phone attracted much less attention than the Samsung Galaxy S3 or the iPhone 5. Sticking to its contracts to allow AT&T to exclusively sell the Lumia for the first eight month will only worsen the situation. NOKIA got itself aligned with industries but off with the consumers with the Windows 8 platform. Frankly, the mobile environment for both usage and development has heavily leaned towards Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android – so seriously, NOKIA, what are you doing?!

Click here to view historical models (Source: NOKIA)

No doubt, NOKIA has brought us some of the greatest designs in our lifetime. Yet the major trends of a signature NOKIA phone has never altered that much. This could be another reason that NOKIA is no longer the top competitor in the mobile arena – it failed to sense shifts in consumer taste and it failed to compete with brilliant Apple-style marketing.

Lastly, NOKIA’s short and long run stock prices don’t look too pleasant neither:

One year trend – credits: google finance

Ten years trend – credits: google finance

Credits: http://www.technobuffalo.com

Samsung’s stock has recently been picked by analysts Mark Newman from Sanford C. Bernstein as a top stock to buy as he feels current share prices are relatively cheap to the company’s values. On Oct 4 a video on Bloomberg also gave positive outlooks on the company, noting that it is the “world’s biggest tech company by revenue,” has “higher brand value than American express or Nike,” while today another video was uploaded declaring that the new Galaxy phone has taken the lead over iPhone 5.

Samsung is fundamentally different in it’s value proposition and target market. Apple sells one phone a year: the iPhone; Samsung, on the other hand, has 150 different phone models in the U.S. alone. Not only does Samsung appeal to a wide variety of consumer preferences, it also appeals to consumers affordability in emerging economies who don’t really need  fancy things like Siri and just want a cheap, operating phone with basic dialing and texting utilities.

Moreover, Samsung isn’t a phone and computer company. It also makes fridges, TVs, CD players, washing machines, and more. In fact, according to this video, Samsung holds 22% in TV, 33% in fridges, 9% in washing machines market shares world-wide.

All you hear about in this continent is Apple, but in Asia, Samsung is and has been the Apple.

For the typical first world youth not unlike myself, computers and modern financial markets are both easily taken for granted. In other words, we easily accept concepts of cross-border debt flows in hundreds of billions, forgetting that they are concepts not much older than ourselves!

Back in 2001, Iceland’s fishermen became bankers overnight – which was only the beginning of a nightmare that would eventually lead to the sharp depreciation of it’s currency, the Krona, and near bankruptcy. In 2008, the world witnessed the U.S. subprime mortgage bubble pop that eventually led to the biggest bailout in history; following that, several Eurozone governments are on the fringe of default. Greece’s government budget deficit secretly spiralled up with nobody keeping track, Spain’s bond rates are sky high, and Italy, Portugal, and Ireland are worrisome, too. On top of that, U.S. budget forecasts trillions of deficits in the near future.

On a micro basis, the average student has more debt on their shoulders (partly from increased tuition, lack of debt education as mentioned by Sam Dunner’s blog, living costs, but mostly from national budget deficits) than any generation before them. As a business student entering a world like this, I’d like to say: thanks for all the mess! Actually, Varun has mentioned banking ethics in her recent post as well.

Dear bankers, you all act like you’re incredibly intelligent, but why do you take unwarranted risks, out of greed? Dear politicians, you like to act like you’re moral, but when are you ever planning to have a budget surplus?

Sincerely,

An angry commerce student.