14 DAY TRIAL // Today, Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia has officially announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of the last year, as well as for the entire year 2013, and announced that sales of Lumia smartphones were lower than expected.
The company managed to sell 8.2 million Lumia handsets in the last three months of the last year (as per WSJ), less than in the third quarter of 2013, but almost double than what it sold in the fourth quarter 2012 (namely 4.4 million).
The announcement showed that Nokia’s growth in the smartphone market has slowed down, though sales of Asha handsets and other phones went up when compared to Q3 2013 (they did drop compared to the previous year).
The handset vendor has revealed operation sales of €2.6 ($3.55) billion for its Devices and Services business, though it has also mentioned that it has discontinued operations for the division, pending the completion of purchase from Microsoft.
For the entire year 2013, the company has announced discontinued operations net sales of €10.7 ($14.59) billion for this business.
“The fourth quarter of 2013 was a watershed moment in Nokia's history,” Risto Siilasmaa, Nokia chairman and interim CEO, said.
“Having received overwhelmingly strong support from our shareholders at our extraordinary general meeting in November for the sale of our phones business to Microsoft, we are diligently working towards defining Nokia's future direction.”
“I am pleased with the progress we have made thus far in our strategy evaluation and excited by the opportunities ahead for each of our three continuing businesses: NSN, HERE and Advanced Technologies,” he continued.
Moving forth, the company will focus on its remaining divisions, with today’s financial report most probably being the last for Nokia as a phone maker.
Those of you who would like to have a look at the detailed financial performance that Nokia has posted earlier today should head over to the company’s website. The full report is available in PDF format as well.