Nokia shifts 1 million Lumia’s in 2011, but huge operating loss

Nokia has announced it’s results for Q4 2011 and it’s mixed news for the phone giant, with strong sales of the Lumia range countered by huge losses.

Nokia is the latest phone manufacturer to release it’s financial results for Q4 2011 and the full financial year stating:

– Accelerating investment in Lumia range of smartphones, having sold well over 1 million Lumia devices to date.
– Solid Q4 performance in mobile phones.
– Strong balance sheet, with net cash and other liquid assets of EUR 5.6 billion at end of Q4 2011.

During 2011 the company had an operating loss was EUR 1.1 billion, compared with an operating profit of EUR 2.1 billion in 2010, this is partly due to restructuring within the company.

Looking at the stats more closely sales of mobile devices dropped from 123.7 million in Q4 2010 to 113.5 million in Q4 2011. In Q4, The company saw lower volumes of high-end ‘Smart Devices’, while general ‘Mobile Phone’ volumes remained flat, this is an area where the company has struggled against Android and iOS.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop comments: “In the war of ecosystems, clearly there are some strong contenders already on the field. And with Lumia, we have demonstrated that we belong on the field. Our specific intent has been to establish a beachhead in this war of ecosystems, and country by country that is what we are now accomplishing. To date we have sold well over 1 million Lumia devices. From this beachhead of more than 1 million Lumia devices, you will see us push forward with the sales, marketing and successive product introductions necessary to be successful.”

Elop also admitted the company would sell few Symbian devices that expected: “In certain markets, there has been an acceleration of the anticipated trend towards lower-priced smartphones with specifications that are different from Symbian’s traditional strengths.”

Yesterday the company announced it had shifted $1.5 billion phones running on the Symbian S40 operating system, from 1999 to 2012.

It’s clear that 2010 was a transition year for Nokia, with a new CEO and adoption of Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system. In our opinion from a devices perspective, the year ended strongly with the Lumia 800 which combined excellent hardware and software. We’ll have to wait and see whether the OS is adopted by more users this year.

Source: Nokia

Updated: With clarification of restructuring.