Nokia Q4 sales 'exceeded expectations'

Handset manufacturer boasts of strong sales for its Lumia and Asha smartphones.
Nokia has revealed that its Q4 mobile sales have “exceeded expectations” as a result of strong sales of its Lumia and Asha smartphone lines.
The company announced that sales of its Lumia series almost doubled during the last quarter to 4.4 million units, whilst also noting that its operating expenses have dropped during the same period. These factors are expected to see the company’s operating margins arrive between breaking even and positive two per cent, representing a significant improvement on previous quarters, whereby it warned the market that it would not be able to meet initial forecasts. Nokia had originally estimated that its operating margin for Q4 would be in the region of negative six per cent.
Nokia also stated that its Nokia Siemens Networks performed better than expected in Q4. And, while it didn’t release revenue figures for the division, the company claimed that the “strong” performance of higher margin product categories was one of the key driving forces behind the Q4 improvement.
“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,” said CEO Stephen Elop in a statement. “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.”
With regards to its Q4 net sales, Nokia estimates that its devices and services division was at €3.9 billion ($5.1 billion), with total device volumes of 86.3 million units. Its mobile phone sales accounted for €2.5 billion ($3.3 billion) of that, at 79.6 million units, of which 9.3 million were part of its budget Asha range.
Meanwhile, smartphones net sales hit €1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) with 6.6 million units sold, 4.4 million of there were from its Lumia range.
However, in spite of its successful Q4 performance, Q1 is expected to see Nokia’s operating margin drop to negative two per cent due to “competitive industry dynamics.” In other words, competition from the likes of Samsung and Apple.

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/...tations/020285