Nokia Lumia sales increase as company losses shrink


Nokia has published its Q2 2013 financial report that outlines increasing Nokia Lumia sales and a rapidly decreasing profit loss figure.


The Finnish smartphone manufacturer has announced that its losses seem to be stabilising, having decreased from 824 million euro (£711 million) Q2 2012 to just 115 million euros (£993,000) this quarter – a 24 per cent difference.


Of course, Nokia isn’t quite out of the woods yet, but it is a definite improvement for the struggling company.


Its Q2 2013 success is down to the increasing confidence in the Windows Phone 8 platform and strong Nokia Lumia sales. Nokia managed to sell 7.4 million Lumia smartphones during the quarter.


This figure equates to a year-on-year rise of 32 per cent, boosted by those models at the lower end of the price range, such as the Nokia Lumia 620.


“We are very proud of the recent creations by our Lumia team, from the Lumia 520 – our most affordable Windows Phone 8 product which has enjoyed a strong start in markets like China, France, India, Thailand, the UK, the US and Vietnam – to the Lumia 1020, our star imaging product which we unveiled to the world last week,” explained Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO.


Smart device net sales actually dropped by 24 per cent to 1.164 billion euros (£1.004 billion) from 1.541 billion euros (£1.330 billion), which also supports the fact Nokia’s lower end Windows Phone 8 devices are doing better than the higher-priced options like the Nokia Lumia 925 or Lumia 920.


Feature phone net sales also fell from 2.291 billion euros (£1.977 million) to 1.405 billion euros (£1.213 billion) from the same period last year, which equates to a 39 per cent decrease year-on-year.


Although this isn’t exactly surprising, from Elop’s comments it seems that Nokia will be launching more Asha and budget Lumia handsets in the near future to combat this.


“Towards the end of the second quarter we started to ship the Asha 501, which brings a new design and user experience to the highly competitive sub-$100 market. While we are encouraged by the consumer response to our innovations in this price category, our Mobile Phones business unit is planning to take actions to focus its product offering and improve product competitiveness.”


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