Nokia Loses $1.38 Billion, But Sells 1 Million Windows Phones
Friday, January 27th, 2012Nokia lost $1.38 billion in the final three months of 2011, with unit sales of the company’s mobile phones overall declining 23 percent year-over-year. Still, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop was clearly delighted that the company sold more than 1 million Lumia smartphones based on Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform during the fourth quarter.
“In the war of ecosystems, clearly there are some strong contenders already on the field, and with Lumia, we have demonstrated that we belong on the field,” Elop told investors Thursday.
Nokia brought the Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 to market ahead of schedule, which Elop said demonstrated that the handset maker has been able to substantially boost the “clock speed” of its engineering development cycle.
“To date, we have introduced Lumia to consumers in Europe, Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan,” Elop said. “We have also started our important re-entry into the North American market.”
Good Initial Response
In the United States, for example, retail giant Walmart is already offering the Lumia 710 for free when subscribers sign up for a two-year service contract with carrier T-Mobile USA. And according to unconfirmed media reports, Nokia’s coming Lumia 900 will be priced at less than $100 when the new 4G LTE device launches exclusively on AT&T’s network next March.
Nokia also intends to bring the Lumia series to new markets — including China and Latin America in the first half of 2012. However, the U.S. is “a market that Nokia absolutely needs to crack,” said Gartner Research Vice President Carolina Milanesi.
With respect to Nokia’s Lumia 900, “the initial response at CES was very good,” Milanesi said. However, “they cannot price it higher than iPhone.”
Nokia’s massive marketing investment to promote the Lumia 800 contributed to “better than expected” shipment volumes, noted Francisco Jeronimo, IDC’s research manager for European mobile devices….
View full post on NewsFactor Network