“Nokia Oyj jumped the most in a decade after sales of its flagship smartphone exceeded analysts’ estimates, signaling the former global handset leader is making progress with a plan to stem revenue and market-share declines,” Adam Ewing reports for Bloomberg.
“Sales of the Lumia phone increased to 4 million units in the second quarter from more than 2 million in the previous period, Nokia said today,” Ewing reports. “The Espoo, Finland-based company, which lost its 14-year run as the phone-industry leader this year, still projected continuing losses at its handset business… Analysts on average projected that Nokia would ship 3.8 million Lumia phones… Last week, the price of the Lumia 900 was cut in half at AT&T Inc. to $49.99 with a two-year contract in a sign the device is struggling to pull customers away from iPhone and Android models.
Ewing reports, “Rising Lumia sales are a bright spot for a company struggling to return to profitability as it reported a fifth consecutive quarter of plunging revenue. Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop is betting on the Lumia running Microsoft Corp. software to halt gains by Apple Inc.’s iPhone and handsets using Google Inc.’s Android software… Nokia rose as high as 1.62 euros for the biggest intraday jump since April 2001.”
“The second-quarter net loss widened to 1.41 billion euros from 368 million euros. Analysts predicted a loss of 641.1 million euros, according to the average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg,” Ewing reports. “Revenue tumbled 19 percent to 7.54 billion euros, compared with the 7.32 billion-euro estimate… Total smartphone sales fell 39 percent to 10.2 million units and more basic handsets rose by 2.4 percent to 73.5 million units.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: When 4 million units of a highly-promoted phone is cause for massive celebration, call the hearse.
Nokia just crawled over a bar that was buried underground. Whoop-de-doo!
So they sold more phones (at a reduced price) but lost more money. THAT is cause for celebration?? What’s the classic line? “Sure, we lose money on each one, but we’ll make it up in volume!”
1
Well, to be fair, the price cut only happened last week, so that might not be reflected in that quarterly report. HOWEVER, the losses more than tripled YOY?!? Even after selling twice the product?!? AND STOCKS ROSE ON THAT INFORMATION?!?
That will be a mere blip. Now that the consumers’ up front cost is halved, maybe they can triple their current sales now, and get that loss up to $3 billion.
Ummmm….. This is not UNO. The person that runs out of money first does not win…
But they’ll make it up in volume.
When you pay people to take the phone, you are pretty much assured that you will lose money.
Microsoft, killing partners, one at a time.
LOL
Microsoft, killing partners, one at a time ™
Microsoft..whoops, sorry about that. ™
Microsoft..we swear it’s not our fault..™
It’s a pretty phone, windows phone is nice, the price is unbeatable, I wish them well. It’s an uphill battle for them.
Top dogs now underdogs, how quickly things change.
Death by a thousand cuts; M$ supplies the knife. 🙂
I’m waiting for user satisfaction data. That will tell the tale, and set the future sales prospects.
The lumia is at the end of it’s life – not eligible for Windows 8 upgrade. What’s next? It had better be good.