Nokia sells over 1 million WP7 devices, beats market outlook
updated 07:10 am EST, Thu January 26, 2012
Nokia beats market consensus, but profit down
Nokia has posted its financial results (pdf) revealing better than expected results. The Finnish company reports that it has sold ‘well over’ 1 million Windows Phone-based smartphones in combined sales of the Lumia 710 and the Lumia 800. However, while its core earnings beat market consensus, they were still down 73 percent as it sold less Symbian-based smartphones than it had forecast.
Even though Nokia made several international launches of its new WP7-powered smartphones in Q4, its initial sales did not offset the continued slump in its Symbian-powered devices. Its smartphone sales fell a further 31 percent, year-over-year, on the shipment of 19.6 million handsets. A small bright note was that its smartphones sales experienced a holiday uptick, up 17 percent from Q3. While it did not enter into specific forecasts for the next quarter, its expectations for Lumia sales are that they are not expected to offset the ongoing plunge in sales of its Symbian devices.
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said that the company’s feature phone sales were strong and that this was on the back of a rash of new releases, including the Asha 200, 201, 300 and 303 as well as double-digit growth in its dual-SIM phone business. While it is pleased with early sales figures for its Lumia smartphones, it plans to boost these numbers significantly with launches in China and Latin America. Elop also highlighted the flagship Lumia 900 LTE, which he says has been specially tailored for the US market and is expected to get top-billing from AT&T on its release.
Elop also added that Nokia still remains in a transition period over 2012. This is the result of restructuring that followed its major announcement in 2011 that it was dropping development of its Symbian platform and had entered into an agreement with Microsoft to replace Symbian with Windows Phone 7. Both companies hope to be able to combine their marketing and brand power in an effort to rekindle their stagnating smartphone plans.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jul 2010
Poor Nokia
The death clock keeps running................