Analysts suggest that Nokia faces low stock and poor demand

Nov 30, 2012 08:01 GMT  ·  By

In the beginning of this month, Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia made its new Windows Phone 8 devices available for purchase in various markets around the world, and has appeared to have a rather hard time keeping up with demand ever since.

The company’s Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 smartphones keep on running out of stock at carriers and retailers even one month after the official launch, supposedly due to the high demand that they are enjoying.

Lumia 920, the flagship Windows Phone 8 handset from the company, was said to be most sought for, though not everybody agrees to this.

In fact, Deutsche Bank AG notes in a report published this week that Nokia in fact has had a very low Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 stock to begin with, and that the shortages that made the headlines the past few weeks were in fact misleading.

The analysts also note that Nokia is not seeing such huge demand as claimed. They also suggest that the rising expectations on the device are actually disappointing.

“We maintain our Q4 Lumia shipment estimate of 4m and believe consensus expectations for 30-35m units in 2013 are too optimistic,” Deutsche Bank said, a post on valuewalk reads.

“Given a muted smartphone recovery and Nokia’s Mobile Phone business (65% of D&S revenues) likely seeing continue declines, we maintain SELL.”

The analyst report also brings to the spotlight a consumer survey conducted in the UK, which revealed that Nokia’s market share in the country went below 10 percent in the very first week after the release of Windows Phone 8 devices.

Nokia is expected to ship around 5 to 6 million Lumia devices per quarter in the next year, greatly impacted by an increase in interest towards Android and Samsung smartphones.

Deutsche Bank AG suggests that Nokia won’t be able to sell more than 23 million Lumia devices in the entire year 2013.

Nokia hasn’t provided specific info on the sales of its latest Lumia handsets, but claims that it is working hard on meeting demand for them. “You can be very sure that we are working hard to meet the demand,” Doug Dawson, a Nokia spokesman, told The New York Times.