The Nokia Lumia 900 Isn't Saving Microsoft or Nokia
The latest Windows phone, which got pretty good reviews from the techies, could have been the device to lift both Microsoft and Nokia out of their respective slumps. But, for Microsoft and Nokia this phone isn't saving much of anything, at least not after what we learn from in Nokia's earnings report this quarter.*
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Nokia CEO Stephen Elop called the sales results "mixed," noting exceeded expectations in certain markets, such as the United States, but challenges in others, like the U.K. Though this chart to the right doesn't give a breakdown of the individual devices, you can see for Nokia smartphone devices, compared to last year, sales numbers look bleak. And Q2, which will include the Lumia 900 sales*, explains the report, will look "similar to or below" this quarter -- so the company's not planning on seeing a Nokia spike from the Lumia 900 anytime soon, we suppose.
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Elop recognizes that the company hasn't done enough, even pointing to the Lumia 900 as the possible savior of the company. "We have a clear sense of urgency to move our strategy forward even faster," he writes. "We are pursuing step function changes by having launched the Lumia 610 and Lumia 900 in the first quarter, expanding market coverage, increasing advertising, introducing key customer-requested features and broadening our most successful go-to-market activities," he continues. The Lumia series has done well, with sales "still growing," reaching 2 million after the first week of sales, even after an Easter weekend launch. It reached number one on Amazon's best-seller lists. And, American AT&T stores were running out of stock of the phone about a week after launch. Though, these stores didn't have that much stock of the saving grace in the first place, notes Gizmodo's Leslie Horn. Plus, compare that to the iPhone 4S's first weekend of sales, which hit the 4 million mark, and those numbers no longer look that impressive. The new iPad even had better first weekend sales, with 3 million units sold -- and that's for a $500 tablet.
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Even though both Microsoft and Nokia put together a big-ole marketing push, with Nokia organizing a Nicki Minaj concert and Microsoft installing a promotional prize machine thingy called "Free Time Machines," the phone faces bigger challenges than an image problem. It may have come to late to the competition. "On a year-on-year basis Devices & Services net sales in the first quarter 2012 declined in all regions, particularly in China, primarily due to competitive industry dynamics adversely affecting both our Mobile Phones and Smart Devices net sales," explains the earnings announcement. It has tried luring people with a low $100 price tag, but there are cheap Android devices with bigger app stores and the same basic functionality. And, well, the iPhone is just cooler. Though, there might be a teeny-tiny bit of hope from this very unscientific poll WPCentral took. Most of the Lumia 900 converts are coming from Android and iPhone devices. Lucky for Microsoft, the company has another possibly savior: Windows 8. The company will announce its earnings this afternoon, and possibly give insight into how that not-yet-released product is doing.
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This post originally stated that the Q1 earnings reported included Nokia Lumia 900 sales figures.
