Fears that Google’s Nexus One announcement would wreak havoc upon the stock of other rivals in the smartphone space were put to rest. By mid-afternoon Eastern time today, shares in rivals such as Research In Motion (RIM), Apple and Nokia were barely touched.
RIM was down ever so slightly, trading at $65.70. Nokia also was down just 0.75 percent, trading at $13.25. Google itself was down 0.44 percent, at $623.99.
On the “up” side, Apple shares were up 0.17 percent, at $214.38. Microsoft was up 0.03 percent, at $30.96. Shares in Qualcomm, which supplies the Snapdragon processor for the Nexus One, were trading up more than 2 percent, at $48.07. Sprint shares rose more than 5 percent, to $4.13, and even Palm was up over 2 percent, to $10.55.
Shares in Motorola, which released the Droid with Verizon Wireless late last year, were down just over 1 percent, trading at $7.86. Rumors of the Nexus One came during the holiday season, prompting speculation that some consumers would hold off on a Droid purchase.
In a research note, Avian Securities Managing Partner Avi Cohen concluded that Google’s success helps Motorola rather than hurts it, similar to the message that Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha gave when he arrived at Google’s press conference today. Cohen points out that Google’s store is a new channel for people and it will be interesting to see if Google can drive consumer interest, outside of tech enthusiasts, to the channel. Currently, online and non-carrier store points of sale represent the minority of device sales.
“It will be interesting to see how comfortable carrier partners are with this channel since it can effectively lessen their touch point with the customers,” Cohen stated. “Carriers may allocate less in terms of subsidies towards devices purchased through this channel … This is a disruptive move, no question; question is whether or not carriers start to feel alienated and what their reaction/level of support will be.”
The losers, in Avian’s opinion, are participants in other ecosystems outside of Android, such as non-smartphones, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm, BlackBerry and Apple.
