The year is 1997. Mobile telephony, which began about five years before the start of commercial life, was managed worldwide by an American company (Motorola), a Finnish (Nokia), a Japanese (Sony) and, at a distance, another Japanese (NEC). and a German, Siemens, fifth in the dispute. The passage of time was changing the ordertoday it consists of a prominent South Korean (Samsung), an American (Apple) and three Chinese lurking: Xiaomi, Huawei and Oppo. Zero Europe.

Japan, which long lost its technological superiority in the 1980s and 1990s, also fell brutally out of the top 5. Sony and NEC have suffered different fates, although neither have returned as equals, and other Japanese brands have also failed to rise to global relevance at this time. Fujitsu/Toshiba, Panasonic, Sharp, Kyocera, NTT DoCoMo. None came close to the success of other Asian companies from China, Taiwan or South Korea.

CE debris

If a country of 125 million is doing badly, perhaps a community of 450 million is doing worse. The European Union, which has had a very strong presence for decades: Having reached 50% market share, Finnish Nokia went bankrupt as a result of bad decisions and worse purchases, and today it continues to exist under the umbrella of HMD Global rather than the days of wine and rose.

The most iconic phone from every manufacturer in the 1997 and 2022 rankings. Enlightened, Europeans.

SiemensGerman excellence, which christened its phones with a naming scheme like that of Mercedes-Benz and became a passion in design, also left a declining history with operations that turned out badly. BenQ. Another loss.

erikson also an important role. It first merged with Sony for its mobile business and since 2012, Ericsson is no more as that alliance has broken down. End of Swedish presence in the manufacturers list. There was something in the south, in the Netherlands. philipsAt the turn of the century, when he did not know how to proceed, he had the necessary materials and a certain presence for success. So we went to brands that tried but didn’t have that big of an international presence.

Also born among tulips Fairphone with the intention of being an ethical producer. His good intentions were not enough to hold on to the industry.

In Spain we have a sample of every class. Vitelcom It produced telephones from Campanillas (Malaga) and managed to assemble five million units in its best year. That was before Telefónica, which saved them from certain death due to a lawsuit filed by Nokia for infringing their patents, decided to stop buying their terminals. Vitelcom was created almost to the extent of Telefónica, so its demise was inevitable.

Sadder or more, with much longer suffering than Vitelcom’s, bq and his death in slow motion. The company Las Rozas, which once embarrassed global players, collapsed and the dream of owning a successful Spanish manufacturer came to an end. the past was less bright geekphonewith some merit but closed since 2015.

There are brands that seem to achieve more, but no. English case for you to seewent bankrupt after producing many old adhesive products. Or also English my safeIt looked like it was going to do something by former HTC employees who were at the top by their founders. Anyone.

double axis

The turning point is, first of all, the moment when the Internet becomes available in mobile networks. European carriers have focused on isolating their customers so that their experience is limited to the private browsing portals they each own. The Japanese i-mode standard has been incorporated by several European operators for this purpose and little success in these environments has resulted in little return on the huge investment in 3G licenses. this resulted in taking the following investments to other latitudes.

Of course, the fault lies not only in the operators and owners of telecommunication networks. As the absolute leader, Nokia also made several decisions that cost it dearly.. Not only is it rooted on Symbian (we’ll never know if it will outperform the competition using Android), but it may also not know how to develop Symbian as the market demands. There were also financial moves that went wrong.

It bought Navteq for 6.5 billion euros the year the iPhone was born to offer paid navigation services. Three years later, he announced that these services would be free to engage the public. So he gave him the intellectual property that cost him 6,500 million.

Semi-European Sony-Ericsson also rose to prominence in the mid-1900s, particularly for its camera and media player technologies using the Walkman brand. Nor did he know how to improve his interface to what was customary in the iPhone and Android era.

After the smartphone smart watches perhaps as the next big phenomenon for which some Europeans can get a piece of the pie. All eyes were on the Swiss watch industry, and he thought that perhaps his immense tradition and knowledge of watchmaking could influence this new market. This was not so. Or not enough.

And we come to the present era. this knowledge Europe and its innovation, which was the force that made GSM accepted in the region in the eighties and mobilized the entire industry, were left behind. Even the victorious operating systems, iOS and Android, both Made in the USA.

The European Union is left behind in 4G, completely dependent on others in 5G, and its competitive advantage in connectivity has also evaporated. The great platforms and technologies of this age (Apple, Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, AliBaba, Tencent, TSMC…) are on both sides of the map. Even companies that continue to be involved in telecommunications, such as Nokia and Ericsson, have the disadvantage of outpacing their cheaper rivals in China and South Korea.

After all these desperate years, there is now a small, paradoxical one called. Nothingand is called upon to occupy the space OnePlus conquered in 2013: tech geeks who appreciate the benefits of a different offering. After more than just stunning earphones, its first phone will launch on July 12. We’ll see if Carl Pei’s brand manages to rekindle the mobile industry’s successes in Europe, or just another laudable venture that can’t compete against the disparate Chinese that has devastated Samsung, Apple, and others.