“Nokia ditched its sales chief and promised to slash more costs, as the Finnish cellphone maker runs out of time to reinvent itself under pressure from smartphone rivals,” Tarmo Virki reports for Reuters.
“Analysts said Chief Executive Stephen Elop had until the end of the year to improve sales of the new Lumia smartphones – Nokia’s main weapon in its fight against rivals Apple and Samsung Electronics – before investors started to question his strategy,” Virki reports. “Elop, who launched Nokia’s turnaround plan in February 2011, said sales of the new Windows-based Lumia phones on which the company is pinning its hopes have been mixed.”
Virki reports, “Nokia said Colin Giles, head of sales, would leave the firm in June as it restructures the team to help speed up sales. His boss, markets unit chief Niklas Savander will take on Giles’ duties… Nokia reported a loss of 0.08 euro per share for the first quarter on Thursday, one cent wider than a Thomson Reuters StarMine forecast. It warned last week of losses in the first two quarters of the year… Nokia said it would announce details of the extra cost cuts soon.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Elop. With a capital “F.”
Related articles:
Euro carriers: Beleaguered Nokia’s Windows Phone not good enough to compete with Apple iPhone or even Samsung phones – April 17, 2012
Beleaguered Nokia slashes forecast on smartphone competition; shares plummet – April 11, 2012
Mossberg reviews Microsoft’s Nokia Lumia 900, can’t recommend it over superior iPhone 4S – April 5, 2012
How long until it’s time to write the obituary for Windows Phone? – April 4, 2012
Microsoft’s Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone racks up bad reviews – April 4, 2012
Beleaguered Nokia desperately uses non-existent ‘iPhone death grip’ in new ad for anemic-selling Windows Phone – April 2, 2012
Nokia paying AT&T up to $25 million for exclusive employee use of Lumia 900 Windows Phone – March 23, 2012
Brutal truth about Lumia: Windows Phone strategy doomed for beleaguered Nokia – March 21, 2012
Another member of the “as long as it takes” circle.
Steve meet Steve. Oh, you know each other. Now I get it…
The Microsoft touch of death strikes again. If Windows Phone 7 Metro interface is a precursor to the fate of Windows 8, God help Microsoft, because people will be fleeing the Windows platform in droves that’ll make the Jewish exodus out of Egypt seem like a cakewalk.
Where are all the condescending comments about the tinker toy computer maker AAPL? Naysayers? Eh? Must we put up with yellow journalism?
Listen … listen real close. Hear that? Come on, now I said REAL CLOSE. Is it a ….. waterfall? Naww. Is it a wave upon the ocean? nooooope. Is it …. could it be …. YES, IT IS! THE SWRIL OF THE COMMODE IN KEILANEIMI, ESPOO, FINLAND. FLUSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Surely you jest. Isn’t the flushing sound of the commode reserved specifically for RIM?
In Nokia’s case wouldn’t the image of a downhill racer crashing against the mountain slopes be more appropriate, something like Britain’s Eddie the Eagle in the 90m ski jump event.
I like the “swril” of commodes. Is that the Finnish word for “flush?” 🙂
It’s not the sales guys fault. Probably should look at the hardware, software and UI chiefs.
was thinking the same thing. how is this the fault of Sales? More like a problem with Strategy / choice of OS.
People are just waking up to the idea that Apple isn’t some marketing genius that tricks people into buying things. Furst rule of marketing: have something people actually want to buy.
It just reflects the focus of the company in question and the error of thinking pointed out by SJ that when the sales guys take over it will destroy the company. The main focus clearly is on sales not on innovation, that’s why the sales chief is blamed and gets his ass kicked.
Of course not. It’s the guy that decided to trash Nokia’s own OS and go with Microsoft.
Sales people have a very hard time selling a crap product.
Of course its not the fault of the sales guy.
With «nothing» to sell he’s redundant, so to cut costs he has to go.
Hadn’t thought of it that way. You are correct.
Sales have been “mixed”? What from “bad to worse”?
or good in that they sold some but bad in that the sales figures don’t match their disllusional expectations!
“Niklas Savander will take on Giles’ duties”? Upon receiving this news, Niklas was overheard saying, ‘WTF’.
When this was first posted online, I KNEW we’d be referring to it over and over again in the future:
I remember that one but I had to go back and read it again. Thanks, I needed a belly-laugh!
Nokia was done the second they hired Elop. He came from Microsoft and quickly killed off Maemo, Nokia’s last chance at a mobile OS that can compete with iOS and Android. Instead, he probably got paid off by Balmer to use Windows Phone OS and doomed Nokia forever.
Maybe Elop needs to pen another “burning” memo:
Man, I am so used to “Beleaguered” being followed by “RIM” that it took me 3 tries to make sense of this headline.
Please, throw the guy a bone. Even the Great Steve (RIP) couldn’t sell the NokumiaWinPhone’07
Nokia profits, smoked by Windows Phone.
MDN Take: LOL… yeah big giant “F” for Elop.
You’ve got to love there strategy, you really do!
I’m starting to confuse these Nokia with RIM headlines.
MDN, try a little harder.
this is just setting up Nokia as a MSFT takeover target. All part of the plan. Ballmer will acquire all of Nokia’s assets, shutter its development facilities in Finland, hand Nokia IP to cheap asian suppliers, and attempt to copy the iPhone market strategy.
…and guess what — it will work. With android now being revealed for the fraud it is, MS will assume its position as the world’s cheap smartphone, while Apple will continue to do the hard work of innovating and offering the premier quality smartphone on the planet.
it’s not that hard to read the tea leaves, guys. MSFT has been working on this since 2009, and you know how agile the dorks in Redmond are.
So the complete failure of Windows Phone, and the subsequent death of Nokia, is all part of Steve Ballmer’s master plan to license Nokia’s IP to Asian manufacturers so they can start churning out cheap Windows Phones which nobody wants?
I like that strategy. I like it alot.
yes, except at the right price, consumers will indeed buy Windows crap-phones. Hell, Americans bought pet rocks for cryin’ out loud. Don’t underestimate the spending power of the undereducated mass market.