Q4 2011 Results Bring More Bad News For Nokia

In spite of the success of Nokia's Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, the world's leading mobile phone manufacturer had a particularly disappointing year in 2011. Stephan Elop, Nokia CEO, is remaining confident, but 2012 looks like it'll be a decisive year for the Finnish phone-maker.



In the last quarter of 2011, Nokia sales dropped 21% (9% in 2011) compared with the same quarter in 2010, with net losses totalling €1.07 billion in Q4 alone.

Facing tough competition from Android and Apple (which has just published excellent financial results), Nokia has been somewhat overshadowed in the lucrative smartphone market. Even the sales-boosting holiday season towards the end of Q4 wasn't enough to set things back on track.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, Nokia sold 93.9 million mobiles (feature phones) and 19.6 million smartphones, compared with 37.04 million Apple iPhones over the same period. The results are below market hopes, and sales figures are lower than the same quarter of 2010 (-8%) in spite of bouyant Lumia handset sales, estimated at over a million units.

Stepen Elop, however, is confident that restructuring within the company and Nokia's partnership with Microsoft (for using Windows Phone 7 in its smartphones) will help the firm restore some of its former glory.

Nokia hasn't set any targets for 2012, which the firm sees as a 'year of transition'. Then again, as Markus Huber from ETX Capital points out, this could be a sign that the recent recovery is still pretty fragile and isn't yet a firmly established trend. For the time being, it looks like everything is riding on the success of the Lumia range ...

> Review: Lumia 800

> Phone Reviews: Mobiles and Smartphones



> Buyer's Guides: Our Pick of The Best Products