Nokia Returns to Profit on Record Lumia Smartphone Sales

Despite the turmoil the company is currently experiencing, Nokia has reported record smartphone sales for the last three months.

Surprising analysts, Nokia has posted a profit of €118 million (£101m, $162m) for the three months to the end of September, on the back of revenue of €5.66bn. This compares very favourably with a loss of €115m last quarter and a huge €564m loss in the same period last year.

The headline figure from the results are sales of the company's Lumia smartphones which once again hit record numbers with 8.8 million units sold in the quarter.

This is in comparison with 7.4 million sold last quarter and a paltry 2.9 million units sold during the same period in 2012. It is some indication of how far Nokia and the Windows Phone platform has come in a relatively short period of time, helping the Windows Phone platform capture 12% of the UK market in the June-August quarter, according to figures from Kantar.

However, when you compare it to the almost 34 million iPhones sold by Apple in the same period, you get a sense of the size of the challenge facing Microsoft.

Cumulative

Indeed the latest quarterly iPhone figures are just slightly less than the total number of Lumia devices sold since the first smartphone (the Lumia 800) launched in 2011, with the cumulative figure now standing at 36.1 million.

One of the most promising trends to emerge from the figures is the increasing sales in North America, a region Nokia has thus far struggled to gain traction in. In the three month period Nokia sold 1.4 million Lumia smartphones, a 400% increase from this time last year, and an almost tripling of the 500,000 units sold in the previous quarter.

This will be particularly good news for Microsoft, with the company currently in the process of finalising its purchase of Nokia's devices and services business for £4.6bn, a deal expected to be completed in early 2014.

Budget

What will be less welcome news is that average selling price for Lumia devices has dropped to €143, a 7% decrease from the same quarter last year. This is likely due to the popularity of Nokia's budget Lumia smartphones such as the 520, which have proven to be big sellers for the company.

"On a sequential basis, the increase in our Smart Devices volumes in the third quarter 2013 was primarily due to the Lumia 520," Nokia said in a statement.

Life after Lumia

The nature of these earnings reports is going to change fundamentally once the phone business is transferred to Microsoft however, but it is clear that Nokia is planning for life after Lumia.

Nokia chairman and intermim CEO Risto Siilasmaa stating: "Subject to the planned completion of the Microsoft transaction, Nokia will have three established businesses: NSN, HERE and Advanced Technologies.

"Our strategy work is making good progress and it has already become clear that there are meaningful opportunities for all of our business areas: NSN, HERE and Advanced Technologies. In all of these businesses, we have strong assets that we continue to invest in for the long term benefit of our customers and shareholders."

Nokia shares were up almost 7% immediately after the results were announced in pre-market trading.