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Nokia has taken another knock, losing £1.1bn in the last three months. The Finnish phone-fancier saw sales fall by a fifth, with sales of the Nokia Lumia Windows Phone-powered smart phones falling by a third. And things won’t improve in coming months, thanks to Microsoft’s decision to cut off current Lumia phones.
Sales have fallen by a quarter over the past year. The US, where Nokia isn’t traditionally as successful, has seen a rise in sales, but in the rest of the world, even in areas where Nokia sells shedloads of affordable phones, things aren’t so rosy.
Phone industry expert Francisco Jeronimo told us that Nokia’s latest quarterly results are what was expected. Although Nokia continues to struggle in the smart phone market, he points out that Windows Phone shipments rose 83 per cent to 4 million phones, up from from 2.2 million units in the first three months of the year.
But things don’t look good for this summer, thanks to Microsoft’s decision to cut off the current generation of Windows Phone and reinvent the software with the next update — a schism that Microsoft always knew was coming. “As the current Nokia handsets will only get light updates of the new platform and will not be fully compatible, operators don’t see any reason to push the current Lumia devices this summer.”
Nokia recently halved the price of the Lumia 900 in the US. The flagship blower in Nokia’s current Windows Phone line-up will soon find itself unable to download new apps from the Windows Marketplace after Windows Phone 8 arrives later in the year, possibly in October.
Outside the smart phone market, where Nokia shifts most of its phones, there are some glimmers of hope. Francisco Jeronimo suggests “Improvements to the Dual-SIM portfolio and Asha devices are now paying off. Asha devices support some of the most important applications consumers just like smart phones — such as Facebook, Twitter, email, browsing, maps, and Exchange ActivSync — which is particularly important in emerging markets, where fast network connections are not available and users cannot afford high end smart phones.”
Is Nokia relying too much on Microsoft’s decisions? Should Nokia ditch Windows Phone entirely? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.;
