back to article Nokia flogged 4m Lumias, still bled €826m this quarter

Nokia managed to shift 4 million Lumia handsets in the second quarter of 2012, and while it didn't make money during the period, it isn't as broke as many had feared it would be. Overall sales were down by almost 20 per cent compared to the same period in 2011, but despite predictions that cash reserves would dip below €4bn, …

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  1. Roger Greenwood
    Pint

    "executing with urgency"

    Well what other speed is good for executions?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "executing with urgency"

      "Well what other speed is good for executions?"

      Slow and painful has always been rather popular.

      Nokia are definitely dragging out their own demise. And RIM for that matter. On a non-tech note the Euro is the slowest execution in a long while, and so forth. I say prolong the agony, because it gives us commentards something to do.

  2. Mike Brown

    so losing 800m in a qaurter and 4bn in the bak. so microoft should be buying them around about this time next year?

  3. Gerhard den Hollander

    So nokia sold 10.5 million smart devices in Q2 ? is that Worldwide ?

    And about 4 million of those were Lumias ?

    I know the answer should be easy to find, but how many iThings and Android Smart devices were sold in the same Q2 ?

    1. Neil 7

      I know the answer should be easy to find, but how many iThings and Android Smart devices were sold in the same Q2 ?

      Apple sold 35mn iPhones in Q2 2012.

      Android activations are running at just under 1mn a day - you could reasonably assume one activation equals one sale as Google don't count repeat activations.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Channel stuffing

    How many were actually activated ?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just wondering

    1) I the 4 million shipped or sold (are there x million sitting in the channel)?

    2) How did the sales trend during the period. Were 1+ million sold when launched (as the MS love children rushed out to buy one) and then sales quickly dropped off...

    I know, just wait for WP8 (was just wait for the 900 (was just wait WP7.5 (was just wait for WP7,,...)))

    1. RICHTO
      Mushroom

      Re: Just wondering

      Yes, wait for WP8. Significant advantages for corporates is the key thing in a world of a dieing RIM. e.g. full device encryption and remote management. And also its secure like Blackberry as it is not built around a Swiss Cheese OS like Linux....

      Likely the single platform across Xbox, Windows RT and Windows 8 won't do it any harm with consumers either...Oh and Pure View - nothing to compare with that once it comes out on WP.

  6. Charles Calthrop

    The flame that lit the battle's wreck

    Shone round him o'er the dead.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They didn't SELL 4m Lumias

    at least 30% of them were given away.

  8. Neill Mitchell

    "Nokia employees are demonstrating their determination to strengthen our competitiveness"

    Have they got any left?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Nokia employees are demonstrating their determination to strengthen our competitiveness"

      employees left? something around 100k

      1. Anonymous Custard
        Pirate

        Re: "Nokia employees are demonstrating their determination to strengthen our competitiveness"

        And the rest demonstrated their determination to take the pay-off and head out the door before the ship sank (hence the pirate icon).

  9. Eponymous Cowherd
    Holmes

    Cunning Plan?

    And it doesn't look like things are going to improve any time soon. Nokia's existing Lumia range won't run Windows Phone 8, so the company reckons "the third quarter 2012 [will] be a challenging quarter in Smart Devices" as punters hold off to see what new hardware is coming

    No Shit!

    Its almost as if they were set up to fail.

    Now, who would do a thing like that?

  10. Schultz

    Perfect timing with the cash reserves

    Looks like there is enough cash in the bank to get some Win8 phones shipped. So at least their windows strategy won't go down as instant failure.

  11. Mark Jan

    "... as Nokia tries to weather the storm and emerge within a few years as a very different company."

    Yeah, subsidiary of Microsoft!

  12. DAN*tastik

    If they still have so much money, could it be a plan?

    Buy back as many of their shares as they can, they are sort of cheap now... Give 1 billion dollar back to Microsoft so they are free from their obligations and can start producing sellable phones again. See their shares shoot up, sell them again at a huge profit on top of the money they make from phones again?

  13. Albert Hall

    Neologism overload

    "...but the mobile business is extremely seasonable..."

    I'd take that with a pinch of salt.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    The saddest thing here is...

    .. that, under the current strategy, Nokia imagine the actions of laying off staff and closing facilities to be 'non-recurring'.

  15. Neil 7
    Unhappy

    Additional cash

    Much of the additional cash which so surprised analysts came courtesy of pre-payments from IPR licensees - since these are pre-payments does it mean that this particular pot is now going to be empty during future quarters? A bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

    And what about this €220mn component write-down that appeared in the results? Presumably Nokia saw their device inventory was at an all time high with sales already slowing/stagnating, and had to write off components that will now never be turned into finished products. Nokia admitted in the results that at the end of Q2 their inventory level was at the higher end of normal.

    All together this sounds like Q3 is going to see a lot fewer sales than Q2, manufacturing sitting idle until the WP8 devices come on stream, and even less income/revenue/cash to dip into.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Shame

    It's such a shame to see a pioneer and a former market leader as good as Nokia was on it's knees begging Microsoft for Mercy.

    I know a few people with the Lumia range so I've been able to try them out and I really like the look of the Lumia range they are very modern / futuristic and stand out from the crowd of black / white offerings from other manufacturers and they seem pretty sturdy (although I have read online mixed reviews of the build quality), but the OS lets it down for me sadly.

    The idea of the live tiles is a great one in theory, but the execution is poor and the OS is half baked and poorly thought through. Some basic features are missing too and while I'm well aware Apple released iOS with loads of features missing and added them later that was a different time and this industry moves so fast that a company the size of Microsoft simply can't get away doing that. Nokia had the chance to fork Android and make it their own and stick on a Symbian emulator or something, but it's too little too late now I fear.

    Shifting 4 million units sounds impressive, but the people I know who've got them were practically paid to take them, so no wonder they lost so much money. They have cash reserves, but how much faith can investors have when the CEO is pinning his hopes on Windows Phone 8 when he was trotting the same line when they signed a deal to run Windows Phone 7 and when Windows Phone 7.5 came out.

    Windows Phone 8 really is make or break. One more quarter like this and I'm afraid it's bye bye

    1. Richard Plinston

      Re: Shame

      > Windows Phone 8 really is make or break.

      One significant problem with WP8 is that it is not WP7+development, it is version 0.1 of a new rewritten kernel (Windows 8) ported to another architecture (ARM) running on new SoCs (dual-core) and has almost no commonality to WP7. Even the UI is revised to Metro which will be back ported to WP7.8 apparently.

      This will be new hardware + new software and a vague availability date.

      It will be like WP7.0 with 'marketing' saying: "Just wait for 8.1".

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Suggestion

    I have a suggestion. This suggestion is to make special cellular phone with one principal function and one auxiliary function. That principal function is to able to make call by dialing the telephone number. The auxiliary function is to add a switch like function so that any Wifi or BlueTooth tablet like the Ipod Touch or Android device can connect to this cellular phone for Internet connection.

    These devices can also make call by using their application like Facebook or Contact through Wifi or Bluetooth. Even a computer can use this to make phone call.

    The advantage is that the Symbian OS would not go to waste because it is energy efficient and the cellular phone can last very long time without recharging. The complex codes will reside outside of the OS because it contain only two functions. Also, the customer only pay for one carrier instead of paying for each of it devices for 3G or 4G LTE service.

    The disadvantage is that it require to create one or many protocols for the communication between the Ethernet and the mobile. Also I don't think a switch function like an access point exist in a mobile phone , so that need to be created.

    This is my two cents worth of suggestion.

    1. Andrew 60
      Stop

      Re: Suggestion

      It's a good idea. So good that Android did it some time ago, they called it "WiFi Hotspot".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Suggestion

        I am out of date with mobile technology. I need to think of something better next time.

        Thank you for reminding me.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Suggestion

      JoikuSpot light, free from the Nokia Store.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Suggestion

        Hi,

        Thank you for mentionning about Joikuspot.

        By reading the Joikuspot website, I understand that Joikuspot allow a Ipod Touch to have Internet connection, but I cannot find any information about using the carrier service for phone call on a Ipod Touch. What I am thinking is to be able to control cellular phone principal function with another device like the Ipod Touch.

        I am not thinking of using VoIP, but using the cellular phone carrier service to make a call using something like the Ipod Touch.

        Sorry for not making it clear the first time.

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: Suggestion

          That can be done with Bluetooth. Unfortunately Apple has decided that iOS has some bastardised cut-down version of Bluetooth which manages to be incompatible with almost anything which isn't from Apple.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Suggestion

      But when used as said hotspot the battery life will suck. Apart from that many/most apps need always on internet. A good idea 10years ago.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Incomplete quote:

    "Nokia employees are demonstrating their determination to strengthen our competitiveness, improve our operating model and carefully manage our financial resources,..."

    ..."by letting themselves be fired".

    There, fixed it.

    Down on all fronts, albeit slower than some gurus guessed ---> share price rising.

    All good then.

    Ultimate proof that "Free Market Economy" is mainly a Belief System.

  19. jim 45
    Thumb Down

    everything on the shelves is obsolete

    I have a WP7 phone and have been telling friends how great it is. 2 of them recently bought Lumias. Now I have the happy duty of explaining to them why it's a dead end that can never be upgraded to WP8. This ends my brief career as an MS evangelist.

    What's really breathtaking is the sheer chutzpah of MS/Nokia thinking they can 'manage' this by simply denying the obvious, which is that all the WP7 products now on shelves are obsolete, by promising unspecified upgrades to WP7. Hey I can hardly wait to download 7.8.9.9 which "fixes a bug in Outlook" while new phones get WP8.

    It's classic Old Microsoft, back on the block: when they're not locking you in, they're locking you out.

    1. garyc2011
      Thumb Up

      Re: everything on the shelves is obsolete

      "This ends my brief career as an MS evangelist."

      hahah been there done that !!!

      I give advice, but the best advice I give is to tell people to take a phone and try it out and see if they like it

      (In the UK at least contract phones can be returned/exchanged)

      But yeah I got egg on my face recommending an ENTIRE office switched to Nokia N900's (a VERY expensive phone which they announced a few months after launch that the OS - maemo was being discontinued - and dozens of bugs were never fixed.) - at that point I swore never to buy another Nokia. - I posted on the Nokia forums they burnt their most important customer - the early adopter, and they have done it again with WP/Lumia.

      I still cringe going into that office 2 years later :D

      1. jim 45

        Re: everything on the shelves is obsolete

        They want to build support and loyalty for a new platform. And in a single bold move, they stiff every single person who's bought the product to date. They even do it in a big, public way. And then act surprised, no doubt, at the bad press that results.

    2. RICHTO
      Mushroom

      Re: everything on the shelves is obsolete

      Ermm - but you get WP7.8 which gives you EVERYTHING that WP8 does that you have the hardware for....

      So whats the problem? You are not loosing anything that you wouldn't require newer hardware for anyway!

      1. Johnny Tremaine

        Re: everything on the shelves is obsolete

        No, that is incorrect.

        Unless, what, the new mobile Internet Explorer 10, which current devices won't receive, requires dual cores and an NFC chip now?

        1. RICHTO
          Mushroom

          Re: everything on the shelves is obsolete

          IE10 requires hardware accelerated graphics, so wont be on WP7.8

      2. Richard Plinston
        FAIL

        Re: everything on the shelves is obsolete

        > WP7.8 which gives you EVERYTHING that WP8 does that you have the hardware for....

        No, that is simply not true. All that 7.8 will give you is some fiddling changes to the UI so that it looks the same as Metro.

        """the Windows Phone 7.8 update, which brings the new start screen three resizable tile sizes (small, medium, and large)."""

        see also http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/46232/windows-phone-7-8-new-features

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It would be nice to have...

    ...an option to own a smart phone that doesn't require you to send all your contacts to Google/MS/Apple before being able to sync them (or even back them up). It's only a matter of time before one of these three abuses or loses those records:

    <ring> Hello? Mr. Coward? I got your number from your brother, Mr. Antonius Coward. He thought you'd be very interested in our car insurance...

    And then they'll start faking the caller ID on each call they make so you can't just hang up because it might really be your brother. Welcome to the future.

    1. garyc2011
      Thumb Up

      Re: It would be nice to have...

      To my knowledge you *can* store all your contacts on the device/SIM without having to sync at all.

      But yes a good point to all those who sync.................including me :D

  21. Smudge@mcr

    So sad

    Its hard to see these figures as anything other than bad news today, worse news tomorrow...

  22. Andus McCoatover
    Windows

    This is "Skin of teeth" survival. Nokia got through. Just.

    Comment not required.

  23. garyc2011
    Thumb Down

    it pains me but I will say it again

    obvious is obvious

    They should have went android 2 years ago, and differentiated with hardware. I never understood Elop when he said they went Nokia to differentiate, ok, but your handsets look identical, literally to every other WP7 handset as MS has the UI set in stone.

    Give me 1 months loss ($200 million) and I would have a successful port of Android on the Lumia 900 hardware in a very short time frame.

    Sorry, there is no other excuse in not adopting android than the details of the MS pact.

    its like saying Dell are going to ship *ALL* their pc's and laptops with ubuntu so they can differentiate from the MS herd, I say give the people what they want ie ANDROID.

    They could have went android to shore up the company and stop the bleeding, and once the ship was stabilised then look at high risk-high gain phones such as WP. (I cant see WP8 doing much better now as the smartphone market is fast becoming entrenched)

    best scenario is a consortium of google, sammmy and all main android manufacturers buying Nokia for the patents and locking MS out of the market.

    Ps I use ubuntu on my Lenovo netbook and mint on my PC so I aint knocking Linux :)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: it pains me but I will say it again

      It pains me but I will say it again. The average reg reader does not have a clue about business. Firstly, you assume that people would buy their phones if they ran Android. This is not the case. I would not buy one, I hate Android but I like WinPhone. Thus I have a Lumia. I guess I am one of the 4 million.

      Secondly, the bit you seem to be struggling to grasp is that Nokia cannot compete with the Asian manufacturers on a cost of design/cost of production basis. If they become a generic Android manufacturer their devices will be WAY more expensive than Samsung/HTC/ZTE etc. And people will not buy them for this reason.

      Finally, Nokia would have no influence over Android, they would just be another me too generic OEM. With MS they can influence the OS to a much higher level and thus differentiate themselves.

      And the whole ‘MS is screwing over customers with no upgrade to WinPhone8’ remarks make me chuckle. I wonder how many are being typed on 1 or 2 year old hardware running Gingerbread……..

      1. jim 45

        Re: it pains me but I will say it again

        But the "average" customer just thinks Android is Android, they don't know if they have "Gingerbread". Whereas MS will wrap a big public ad campaign about WP8 - notably tied to Win8 itself - so anyone with a WP7 phone will naturally say "ooh! I can't wait!" and then get the wonderful news.

        Because this is Windows, and people always know about, and want, the newest version of Windows, right? And they won't want to be told that the PC they bought 2 months ago won't run Windows 8, will they? But that's exactly what they're going to find out about that wonderful Lumia that their friend (ME) told them to buy just a couple of months ago.

        This is a really bad decision, and it might even prove to be catastrophic if Nokian gets stuck with container ships full of WP7 phones it can't unload.

        1. RICHTO
          Mushroom

          Re: it pains me but I will say it again

          Older Android and Apple phones are still sold....

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. bep

        Re: it pains me but I will say it again

        Yeah but Samsung are selling a lot more Android phones that HTC or ZTE. How come? Could it be because they simply make a better product using the same software? Why was Nokia incapable of doing this? Meanwhile, they could have continued to improve the N9, which got rather good reviews. In going Microsoft, Nokia was really trying to run away from the opposition. They can run, but they can't hide.

      4. GrantB
        Boffin

        Re: it pains me but I will say it again

        1) "Firstly, you assume that people would buy their phones if they ran Android".

        A reasonable assumption looking at companies like Samsung that sell similar hardware running Android and WP7.x. Given the choice, the public overwhelmingly choose with their wallets; and that choice is very clearly Android over WP.

        Also Nokia, (before demonstrating the 'Elop effect') were selling a vastly larger number of phones running Symbian, which indicates that even loyal Nokia customer took a look at WP7 and brought something else.. like Android or iOS.

        Anonymous Coward says: "... I would not buy one, I hate Android but I like WinPhone. Thus I have a Lumia. I guess I am one of the 4 million".

        Sure you could have brought an iPhone, or phone running Bada, Symbian, Meego if you dislike Android so much, but the point is that you are very much in the minority and yet Nokia don't give the majority a choice. If Nokia had kept selling other platforms, while they added WP7 to the product line and (pruned off Symbian), then no problem; you could have brought a Lumia, the rest of the world buy the same (or better) hardware running Nokia Android or something else like Meego.

        2) "the bit you seem to be struggling to grasp is that Nokia cannot compete with the Asian manufacturers on a cost of design/cost of production basis"

        You don't know Nokia do you? I think they could have, certainly competing with Samsung and Apple, as Nokia are still famous for low cost feature phones in BRIC and 3rd world countries. Whatever was wrong with Nokia, they know how to make good cheap phones like the 1100. They had been struggling with getting new devices to market, but a new CEO just had to streamline development – not kill the company. If anything the cheap Asian company churning out Android devices are losing money

        3) “If they become a generic Android manufacturer their devices will be WAY more expensive than Samsung/HTC/ZTE etc”.

        That doesn’t make sense. The Lumia range is already cheaper than Apple or models like the Galaxy SIII – using a free OS (or Meego) would not have changed that, but meant that they would have had more freedom to lower costs or include better screens and features like the Pureview camera. The Lumia range was released after the N9 and with a single core CPU due to limitations of the WP7 OS; basically bringing a knife to a gun fight, when you look at the hi-res quad-core Android devices they compete against.

        4) “Finally, Nokia would have no influence over Android”

        Biggest WTF in your post. With MS, they had to run out a device pretty much limited to whatever MS could support - which turns out to be bugger all. With Nokia Android, they could have shipped similar Lumia hardware (which look attractive), but with lots of freedom to innovate as well as things like Nokia maps or Pureview camera which could have added value. With Meego they would have had total control over the platform.

        “With MS they can influence the OS to a much higher level and thus differentiate themselves”

        lol. So how exactly did they influence the OS? Did they ask MS nicely to ‘please make every smartphone model they currently ship obsolete’ before they have W8 phones even in beta?

        “And the whole ‘MS is screwing over customers with no upgrade to WinPhone8’ remarks make me chuckle”

        If you read the comments above from people having just brought or recommended people by a Lumia, then you will notice the lack of laughs.

        Which makes be suspect you are not really in the 4 million. Remember you just recently brought a platform that is as dead as PalmOS; who is going to build new/updated apps for a platform with limited (single-core) hardware and a limited number of users? Given WP7.x won’t run W8 apps, you can pretty much kiss goodbye any hope of getting new interesting apps next year unless developers back-patch out of pity.

        People running Android 2.x on older hardware probably don’t care as they can run almost any app in the store, and can upgrade at some stage if they really want. People buying a Lumia 900 in Q3 2012 are paying big money for a device which won’t run new W8 software – a world of difference.

        1. jim 45

          Re: it pains me but I will say it again

          It is within Microsoft's power to force app writers to support WP7, albeit with functionality limited in some way. Of course it would also have been within their power to make WP8 run on existing phones in some form. That would have been vastly more acceptable to the average WP7 owner of today - they'd understand that newer phones enable additional features of WP8 but wouldn't have clear sense of being stiffed that they now enjoy.

      5. Chemist

        Re: it pains me but I will say it again

        "The average reg reader does not have a clue about business."

        Indeed that might be true but it looks like a company that has to buy it's OS and manufacture expensive phones THAT IT CAN'T SELL might also be rather poor at a business where it used to be a market leader.

      6. garyc2011
        FAIL

        Re: it pains me but I will say it again

        that is a very poor response..........

        "Firstly, you assume that people would buy their phones if they ran Android. This is not the case. I would not buy one"

        Read the forums, *ALOT* of people say they would buy a lumia if it ran android, just because *YOU* wouldn't means diddly squat.

        "Secondly, the bit you seem to be struggling to grasp is that Nokia cannot compete with the Asian manufacturers on a cost of design/cost of production basis"

        You are showing your ignorance once again, firstly Nokia are moving their operations to that region for that reason, and secondly, a quality handset can command a higher price/margin.

        And finally your most stupid comment of all............

        "Finally, Nokia would have no influence over Android, they would just be another me too generic OEM. With MS they can influence the OS to a much higher level and thus differentiate themselves."

        I had to read that TWICE.

        Hell Nokia could do a fork of Android if they so wished, and because it is Open Source they can modify it as much as they want. WP7 on the other hand was literally IDENTICAL on EVERY handset because MS had the UI locked down 100%. heck they even lost the little bit they had, afaik their maps are now going to be used on ALL WP devices.

        "And the whole ‘MS is screwing over customers with no upgrade to WinPhone8’ remarks make me chuckle. I wonder how many are being typed on 1 or 2 year old hardware running Gingerbread…….."

        That made me chuckle, the difference is the Lumia 900 is the FLAGSHIP product, secondly alot of 1-2 year old Android phones can be upgraded to ICS, thirdly Gingerbread is way more functional than WP7, for example look at the joke that is Skype on WP7.......................

  24. druck Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Elop and seppuku

    Having read the Interim Report I just don't understand how the board and shareholders at Nokia could have let Elop completely and utterly destroy the the company. He's doing worse than his former (supposedly) employer Microsoft reducing the value of Aquantive from $6.3bn to $0.1bn in 5 years. If it were a Japanese company, every last one of them would have committed seppuku by now.

  25. Martin Harnevie
    WTF?

    Despite zero promotion, Symbian still outselling Windows Phone

    The important news is: Despite zero promotion, Symbian still outselling Windows Phone one and a half year after Symbian was pronounced *dead*.

    Speed of execution doesn't matter when the strategy is suicidal.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/wtf_32.png

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