Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Nokia reports loss as Windows Phone sales are off to okay start

Nokia said it has sold well over 1 million Windows Phones to date

Nokia's sales dropped and losses increased during the fourth quarter, as sales of Symbian-based smartphones suffered and Windows Phones got started.

The most anticipated data in the report concerned Nokia's sales of Windows Phones. But Nokia shared few details, only saying that it has "sold well over 1 million Lumia devices to date."

The company reported sales of €10 billion (US$13.2 billion), down 21 percent year-on-year, making a net loss of 1.07 billion, compared to a net profit of €745 million a year earlier.

Analysts had expected unit sales of about 1 million Nokia Windows Phones.

Nokia's massive marketing investment promoting the Nokia Lumia 800 contributed to shipping better than expected volumes, said Francisco Jeronimo, research manager at IDC.

"Well over" means about 1.5 million units, and that is an okay start, according to Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.

"I think the 1 million mark is the important bit. We now need to wait to see the full power when more countries are added. The first quarter will give us a better sense," said Milanesi via email.

The results show that Nokia needs to sell Lumia phones in both North America and China, according to Milanesi. It has rolled them out in North America, but it must now do so in China, she said.

Nokia sold a total of 113.5 million phones, down 8 percent compared to last year. Also, the number of smartphones sold dropped from 28.6 million to 19.6 million.

Consumers are also paying 23 percent less year-on-year for Nokia's phones -- €53 versus €69.

As the distribution of the Windows Phone-based Lumia smartphones ramps up, Nokia is still dependent on the sales of Symbian-based smartphones. But that isn't working so well. Sales are dropping faster than expected, Nokia said.

"Despite the latest improvements on Symbian's user interface and a few new devices launched, it is now clear that Nokia will not be able to continue relying on Symbian and needs to move even faster to Windows Phones," said Jeronimo.

Milanesi agrees: Symbian's weakness is putting more pressure on Nokia to make the transition to Windows Phone faster.

During 2011, Nokia progressed in the right direction, but it still has a tremendous amount to accomplish in 2012, it said in a statement.

Send news tips and comments to mikael_ricknas@idg.com

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: Gartner, IDC, Nokia, Symbian

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: business issues, consumer electronics, financial results, Microsoft, mobile, Mobile OSes, Nokia, smartphones, Windows Phone
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Bend or break: Flexible Policy
    DON’T. PANIC. Aligning business and IT needs has always been a challenge. Finding the right balance between ensuring the safety of sensitive data and enabling the free flow of information is increasingly difficult in today’s evolving regulatory and threat environment. Read on.
    Learn more »
  • Case Study: Keeping information on the move: Clearswift protects Maman, the logistics experts
    Time is money. Every minute a consignment is held up in transit costs money and causes problems. Web and email are mission critical business tools that enable Maman, and their customers, to efficiently collaborate with partners across the globe. Spam, and other web based threats can result in delays that ultimately lead to missed deadlines - keeping the lines of communication open is therefore a key priority for Maman. Read on.
    Learn more »
  • Oracle SOA vs. IBM SOA - Customer Perspectives on Evaluating Complexity and Business Value
    The Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) model has become the cornerstone of business computing. Its ability to greatly accelerate the development of business-critical applications promotes business agility, decreases time-to-value and total cost of ownership (TCO), and greatly increases the efficiency and strategic value of IT. SOA implementations tend to be complex, IT decision makers should carefully consider their choice of a SOA platform in terms of its ability to simplify the fundamental development, deployment, and management tasks involved. Read on.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments