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R&D Spending: Nokia Vs. Apple Shows Size Doesn't Matter

February 4, 2011 at 8:41 am PT

Some additional perspective on Nokia’s massive mobile R&D spend and a point of comparison for its market return. Extrapolating from Bernstein Research data that estimates Nokia spent $3.9 billion on mobile research and development, Asymco’s Horace Dediu has calculated Apple’s mobile R&D spend, and there’s an astonishingly wide gulf between the two.

Nokia spends about five times as much on mobile R&D as Apple. In fact, Nokia has nearly as many engineers working on its smartphone software platforms as Apple does for its entire product line. Says Dediu, “Symbian alone may cost twice as much to develop than the iPhone (including the hardware).”

A shocking metric, if correct. And a pretty dismal return on investment–unless there’s another version of Symbian in the pipeline that will best iOS.

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Not Seeing Much Return on That Massive R&D Spend, Are You, Nokia?

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Tagged with: Android, Apple, Asymco, Bernstein Research, competitor, developers, development, digital, Digital Daily, estimate, Facebook, Google, handsets, hardware, Horace Dediu, innovation, iOS, John Paczkowski, legacy, lineup, losses, MeeGo, Nokia, Pierre Ferragu, platforms, R&D, research, Symbian^3

comments so far. Add yours.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7FJZ3NE5KUO5R64T7MTOLDUWNA Roznik Kinzor

I think Apple still owes a few billion dollars to Nokia for patent usage ?
Anonymous

“I think Apple still owes a few billion dollars to Nokia for patent usage ?”

Or more probably, maybe Nokia owes Apple a few billion for patent usage, cause Nokia can’t find its corporate ass with ALL its corporate hands.

Ayuh
Anonymous

Apple definitely owes Nokia some money for patent usage. They would’ve paid it already, but Nokia has tried to force more onerous terms on Apple than it does other phone vendors, basically charging Apple a premium for reasons unknown. In other words, it’s Nokia’s own fault they haven’t been paid yet.
Anonymous

This is a tortoise and hare story.

Apple is moving more slowly (fewer engineers, spending less) but they are way ahead because have been walking the same path for much, much longer. Slow and steady, always on the same course. All of the R&D from Apple/NeXT was leveraged in iPhone. iPhone got the OS X core for free, iPod+iTunes for free, even the ARM architecture is from the Newton. All the tuning Apple did to make OS X run efficiently on PowerBook batteries is helping it to run efficiently on iPhone batteries. And Apple didn’t waste time or money on crappy products. And Apple lowers engineering costs through design and prototyping, their engineers work on practical stuff that ships.

Nokia, by comparison, although they have been in the phone business longer, they have been in the computer business a much shorter time. And the phone business just got eaten by the computer business, same as music players got eaten in 2001. Nokia is ironically the new guy, they have to catch up, they have to do what Apple did in the past 30 years all in one year. So even if they outspend Apple 10:1, they will be behind. And they are wasting effort with lack of focus also.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mitchell-Senft/559886208 Mitchell Senft

Maybe part of it is due to the difference between knowing what you’re doing and poking around in the dark — lots more dead ends in the latter case. Or trying to adapt a crappy OS instead of creating a new one.
Anonymous

You’re confused in regard to the relationship between ‘corporate ass’ and a ‘patent’.