Nokia said it sold 4 million Lumia smartphones in the company's second quarter -- twice the number that the handset maker had previously shipped in the first three months of 2012. Growth was driven by the expanded availability of the Lumia 900 and the Lumia 610 across markets, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said Thursday.
However, industry observers believe that Microsoft  's coming transition to the new Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 platforms, which will not debut until late October, will have an impact on Lumia shipments during the third quarter. The current Lumia models run Windows Phone 7.5, and Microsoft has announced no current Windows Phone models will be upgradable.
"Lumia activations have been flat to up in the weeks following the announcement of Windows Phone 8," Elop told investors during a conference call. "Thus, leading up to the introduction of the Windows Phone 8 products, we plan to introduce tactical measures and promotional campaigns."
We asked Francisco Jeronimo, an IDC research manager based in Europe, about what Nokia should do between now and the end of October.
"They will need to slash prices to be able to keep volumes higher and sell out old stock," Jeronimo said.
Nevertheless, Jeronimo believes many wireless carriers will be reluctant to heavily promote Nokia's current Lumia models.
"There's no point for them to push devices to consumers that are not able to be upgraded to the new platform later on," Jeronimo told us. "Nokia will continue to suffer until its Windows Phone 8 [lineup] is launched."
A Halo Effect For Lumia
Still, Elop noted that the Lumia handsets that it has already placed in the hands of consumers have been well received.
"Last week, a Nielsen survey confirmed how satisfied Nokia Lumia 900 owners in the U.S. are with their devices," Elop said. "The Lumia 900 earned a net promoter score of 63 -- with 96 percent of voters extremely or somewhat satisfied and 95 percent willing to recommend the device to others."
Nokia also expects to benefit from its close relationship with Microsoft and the Windows Phone platform in the long run.
"We anticipate that Microsoft will launch a bold and aggressive marketing campaign for Windows 8, which we believe will have a halo effect for Lumia," Elop said.
Nokia also intends to broaden the pricing range of Lumia devices to price points which are both higher for better gross margins and lower for boosting volume. (continued...)
techy46:
Posted: 2012-07-25 @ 9:22pm PT
I'm a Lumia 900 user and can't wait to upgrade to a Lumia 920 or 950. Just tell me what it costs and it's done.
GirthDiggler:
Posted: 2012-07-19 @ 4:00pm PT
Not to worry Nokia. As you know, WP8 is built on the NT core which has no technical limitations like the WinCE core that powers the current Windows 7 series phones (yes it's a drag on sentence!!!)
Combine that it's super hardware capable, plus the fact that native code is now supported, plus the fact that windows 8 RT applications can be ported easily, plus MS Surface, and you can see WP8 is going to really be a game changer. Finally! Can't wait to get a new Nokia "superphone" this holiday season! And a Surface too!!!
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