Nokia exceeds expectations with healthy Lumia sales

Nokia sold 4.4 million Lumia smartphones in 2012, a strong result that helped the company’s mobile phone arm reach underlying profitability for the fourth quarter of 2012.

The company sold €3.9 billion (around £3.1 billion) worth of handsets in the final three months of the year, totalling 86.3 million devices. The company also made €50 million (roughly £41 million) in patent fees.

Stronger sales than the previous quarter meant that Nokia achieved between break-even and 2% operating margin for Q4 of 2012, which comes after three straight quarters of losses. However, the company warned that it expects its operating margin for Q1 2013 to be around -2%.

Nokia’s chief executive officer, Stephen Elop, described the results as “solid” and said the company had “managed its costs effectively2 to bring in a set of results that are better than expected. Nokia sold only 2.9 million Windows phones in the previous quarter.

The news comes in a week in which Elop gave an interview to Spanish newspaper El País in which he apparently refused to commit unequivocally to Windows Phone. The newspaper reports him saying “Today we are satisfied with Microsoft, but anyone can change [their mind]”.

Update

Nokia has reported that Elop’s comment to El País was mistranslated. In a transcript of the original interview released by the handset maker to Neowin, Elop is reported as saying, “We’re looking further into the future, but in terms of what we’re bringing to the market, and what we’re immediately focused on, we’re focused on Windows Phone.”