By: iPadfanzz Editor on April 19, 2013
Nokia’s Lumia range, which the company says is designed to give the best Windows 8 experience, showed good performance in the first quarter of 2013.
Despite cut-throat competition from leading smartphone makers like the Samsung Galaxy S3 and iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia handsets like the Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia Lumia 620 shipped over 5.6 million units in the first quarter of this year. The company now predicts that the shipments of its Lumia range will hit 7 million units by the end of June quarter. Last quarter the company shipped 4.4 million units.
Although not bad, these sales figures still lack by what Samsung and Apple’s projected shipments of 62 million and 37 million units respectively.
Nokia said two-thirds of all Lumias sold in Q1 were running Windows Phone 8. Up to March 31, Nokia has sold 19.9 million Lumias in total since shipping its first Windows Phone device, the Lumia 800, in November 2011.
However, the company suffered a decline in sale this quarter in the North American market, where it shipped around 400,000 units in total, a 33 percent decline year-on-year. During the previous quarter the company shipped 700,000 units. The Finnish firm said sales of Lumia handsets rose in all regions except North America. Although the company has not yet announced any new device in the market, leaked images a Lumia 928 for Verizon recently came up. Nokia is expected to launch this device in the coming weeks, a move that may help it improve sales numbers and market share in the US smartphone market.
The company had reported a 339m-euro (£290m) loss in the January-March period, down from a loss of 1.57bn euros last year.
Analysts say the company’s future depends a lot on higher-margin smartphones. However, the company still sells more regular mobile phones than smartphones, and needs to protect its position in the feature phone segment in order to prevent users to defect to other brands when they eventually upgrade to smartphones.
Analysts further say that the fall in feature phone sales is because of tougher competition, which they say can be arrested with the launch of more innovative and cheaper products.
Nokia recently launched a 15 euro phone in an effort to boost its share in emerging markets. The company is also expected to revamp its Asha range of mid-tier feature phones this year.
Overall, the Finnish company sold 62 million handsets, 10 million down from the 72 million predicted. Revenues were forecast to be around the €6.5 million mark, but in reality achieved €5.85 billion.
