Nokia sold 1 million Lumia smartphones and lost 1 billion Euro in Q4 2011

Nokia is in the middle of a turbulent transformation these day. Moving away from Symbian OS for smartphones over to the Windows Phone 7 platform has affected the latest sales figures. Today's report also tell us that the company lost 1.076 million Euro after taxes during the last three months of 2011. Nokia is a company divided into three divisions: Location & Commerce, Nokia Siemens Networks and Devices and Services. Devices and Services accounts for half of Nokia's income. Net sales for the last quarter was 5.997 million, down from 8.499 in Q4 2010, but an increase from 5.392 since Q3. We have to remember that electronics get a sales boost in November and December due to the Christmas holiday shopping.

The sales of Windows Phone 7 in general is struggling to take off, and Nokia's contribution of 1 million sold smartphones during the quarter does not help very much. Apple sold 37 million smartphones during the same quarter.

Nokia is still the worlds largest maker of mobile phones with 113.5 million units sold during the last quarter in 2011. The company sold 19.6 million smartphones, an increase from 16.8 (17%) since Q3. But a 31% decrease since last year. Number of non-smartphones sold was 93.9 million, a 5% increase since Q3, but a 1% decrease since Q4 2010. The average selling price for smartphones was 140 Euro, down from 154 Euro last year. Mobile phone average selling price is was 32 Euro, down from 42 last year, but same as Q3. 

Symbian is the worlds most popular mobile phone OS, but only if we includes feature phones. If we only look at the smartphone OS share, Android is in the lead. Two years ago, Symbian was the dominating smartphones OS with a market share of 37.6, now Android leads this group where every second smartphone sold runs on the Google OS.

CEO Stephen Elop says that they are pleased with the performance in the mobile phone business. He is proud of the fact that Nokia has managed to get a working handset to market just 6 months after he signed the agreement with Microsoft.

Nokia's first Windows Phone 7 handset for the U.S was introduced earlier this month, and the sale of Lumia 900 in this smartphone hungry market should be visible in the Q1 results this year.

Mr Elop also said that the changing market conditions are putting increased pressure on the Symbian platform. It is a trend towards lower-priced smartphones with specifications that are different from Symbian's traditional strengths. Nokia expects to sell less Symbian devices than previously anticipated.

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