Things are still looking rather bleak for the Finnish phone maker Nokia, as today it posted losses of $1.1 billion for the past three months.
The partnership with Microsoft and its Windows Phone operating system was hoped to be the saving grace for Nokia, whose Symbian-powered devices were fast being outpaced by the likes of iOS and Android a few years ago. Nokia says it has seen good growth with Windows Phone, but profits are still down.
Four million Lumia phones have been sold in the past three months, which is an impressive improvement over the first quarter’s standings – an 83% rise over the January – March period.
Although the numbers have now risen for Lumia phones, they could fall in the next few months as Microsoft’s Windows 8 update comes into the fray. Nokia Lumia owners were left feeling somewhat disappointed recently when it was revealed that the new software would not be coming to their new handsets. No doubt Nokia will launch new devices for the new software to make up for that, though.
Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop spoke of a ‘transitional period’ after the financial review,
“Nokia is taking action to manage through this transition period. While Q2 was a difficult quarter, Nokia employees are demonstrating their determination to strengthen our competitiveness, improve our operating model and carefully manage our financial resources.”
The company sold 73 million phones in the past three months, of which 4 million were Windows Phones, which goes to show how its more basic Symbian-based phones are still the company’s backbone. Many analysts believe that Nokia’s recent range of Asha dual-SIM phones are now becoming their most popular devices, rather than the Lumia range.
Nokia recently slashed the price of its flagship Lumia 900 handset in half in America, which is either a reach to customers or a signal of them winding down the price of Windows Phone 7.5 devices to make room for new Windows 8 ones.
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