“The Nokia handsets business that Microsoft is due to take over saw sales continue to slide in the fourth quarter as its Lumia smartphones failed to draw business away from larger competitors like Apple and Samsung,” Matti Huuhtanen reports for The Associated Press.
“Shares in Nokia Corp. slumped Thursday after the company said it suffered a net loss of 25 million euros ($34 million) in the October to December period, with smartphone sales plunging 29 percent,” Huuhtanen reports. “The devices and services unit, which will be transferred to Microsoft Corp., saw sales fall to 2.6 billion euros from 3.7 billion euros a year earlier. The unit recorded an operating loss of 189 million euros compared with a profit of 97 million a year earlier.”
“Last year, it agreed to a 5.4 billion-euro ($7.2 billion) sale of its ailing handset unit to Microsoft. Shareholders overwhelmingly approved the deal in November and it is expected to be closed during the current quarter, subject to regulatory approval,” Huuhtanen reports. “Nokia gave scant information about the handset unit and did not say who would succeed Stephen Elop as Nokia CEO. Elop, who left Microsoft in 2010 to become Nokia’s chief executive, has stepped down to be executive vice president of devices and services before he rejoins Microsoft once the acquisition of the unit closes.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Whatcha gonna waste your money on next, Mickeysloth, a fleet of Edsels?
I thought that the Lumia was a hit? That’s what the tech press was saying in the fall, and journalists always report the truth.
By 2015 Windows phone was supposed to outsell the iPhone.
Was that what Ballmer said?
Funny and prophetic how the guys who forecast such things aren’t around.
Kind of like Cooligan of Palm who in 2006 said regarding Apple’s rumored phone, “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in,”
Where are they now?
It’s not 2015 yet, anything can happen. 😉
In truth, the press didn’t say it was a hit. They were saying that Win Phone sales had doubled from the year before, which is true. But the base of those sales were so low, that they are still really low.
Yea. I think the Kin sales doubled from one month to the next. 1st month they sold 1, second month they sold 2. 3rd month they dumbed the inventory into Puget Sound. Pity the Orcas.
On the upside, you can talk to the Orcas in Puget Sound now.
Merry Christmas, Microsoft!
Your gift was a bit late, and had a few (actually 189 million) lumps of coal, but boy, is it BIG or what!
In the immortal words of SpongeBob Squarepants, “Well, good luck with that!”
The actual numbers for Lumia phones was 8.8 million sales for the third quarter and 8.2 million for the forth quarter. That’s pretty bad, as smartphone sales rise during the forth, holiday, quarter, and Nokia released two new Lumia’s and a phablet, which was predicted to sell well.
But they did worse for their Asha phones, which aren’t really smartphones, and their Symbian phones, sales of which are completely winding down.
This is a serious problem for Microsoft, as Nokia sells between 85-90% of all Win Phones. I’ve been stating, for a while now, that it’s possible that many people buying Lumia phones are Nokia fans, and as the phones transition over to Microsoft, and after 18 months, or so, the Microsoft brand name, those sales will be hit by people who don’t want a Microsoft phone.
We’ll see.
MDN take… MS has gotta have some vehicle ‘worthy’ of their SYNC product.
I think they are bringing back the Yogo so they can say they have doubled the number of manufacturers using SYNC.
I think they are bringing back the Yugo so they can say they have doubled the number of manufacturers using SYNC.
Since their sales plunged prior to this plunge, what adjective covers plunge^2?
exponential downward spiral?
precipitous leave of a very steep street on go-cart into ocean?
maybe black hole sucking the life out of windows mobile?
oh, you are looking for an adjective, single word…
how about failure?
Ballmer – for as long as it took!
It seems that design engineers and managers (all the way to Balmer) are so ingrained with the Windows way of thinking that they cannot design something that will attract a discerning buyer. Since they have been making “good enough” stuff for years and years it’s just not possible to turn on a dime (in this case, a half dollar coin) and come up with something unique and desirable.
Maybe they can strike a deal where you get a free Nokia Win8 phone, sorry “New Windows” phone with every Ford with Sync.
I like how in all the Windows PC adds these days they won’t even mention Windows 8, they just call it the New Windows.
Funny. I hear the best way to save a sinking ship, is to rescue it with another sinking ship.
they have a viewpoint that does not seem like sinking, like falling into a black hole, the universe seems the same as you are compressed to matter that does not distinguish… eventually you burst into another universe and go ‘wow, that was a fun ride’ and i guess they can’t see the past or the future because there are already idiots waiting on the other side of the black hole to fill the void of users that existed in the other universe!
It’s all about the applications. MSFT simply didn’t get enough software developers on board early enough.
Also, “tiles” are almost as ugly as iOS7 whitewash and skinny fonts. No wonder die-hard Apple fans (except those in the MDN echo chamber) really do cross-shop phones between the latest 5 Android phones that appear every year, and the 1 iPhone version that Apple rolls out each year or so.
Well, as for tiles, unlike Samsung, at least Microsoft tried something different.
First, Best or Really Different.
MS has to be one or the other, yet I don’t see MS doing one of the three that has half a chance of succeeding. Guess I am a skeptic.