14 DAY TRIAL // Today, Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia unveiled its preliminary financial results for the fourth quarter of the last year, and announced that it had sold 4.4 million Lumia devices in the timeframe.
The company also announced that it had managed to sell 2.2 million Symbian devices in the three-month period, and that sales of its Asha phones have gone up to 9.3 million units.
With Nokia’s Asha devices currently classified as smart devices, the company was able to report smartphone sales of 15.9 million devices in the three months ended December 2012.
Nokia also announced mobile phone net sales of around €2.5 billion ($3.27 billion), which included a total of 79.6 million handsets (including 9.3 million Asha full touch smartphones).
The leading mobile phone maker also said that, courtesy of a better-than-expected performance of its Lumia and Asha smartphones, its Devices and Services business had returned to profitability in the fourth quarter of the last year.
Among the factors that positively affected Nokia’s performance in the timeframe we can count lower operating expenses for the Devices and Services business, along with a non-recurring IPR income of approximately €50 million (which could be the licensing agreement with RIM).
“We are pleased that Q4 2012 was a solid quarter where we exceeded expectations and delivered underlying profitability in Devices & Services and record underlying profitability in Nokia Siemens Networks,” Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO, said.
“We focused on our priorities and as a result we sold a total of 14 million Asha smartphones and Lumia smartphones while managing our costs efficiently, and Nokia Siemens Networks delivered yet another very good quarter.”
Looking forward, Nokia expects the first quarter of 2013 to be less profitable when compared to the fourth quarter of the last year, due to lower consumer demand and increased competitiveness on the market. However, the company will ramp up Lumia production in the next months.
“Nokia will provide more details when it reports fourth quarter and full year 2012 results on January 24, 2013,” the company also announced.