sales

While we've already seen signs that the AT&T Nokia Lumia 900 is doing well. The Windows Phone has reached the top of Amazon.com's Best Seller list and finding the Lumia 900 in-stock has been a bit of a challenge.  Even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was out shopping for the Lumia 900.  

Even with the connectivity glitch, sales seem brisk and Nokia is scrambling to keep up with demand. Nokia spokesperson Karen Lachtanski states,

"We are producing more devices to satisfy demand as quickly as possible.”

To help Nokia keep pace with inventory demands, Nokia is seeing more customers opt to update their Lumia 900's to address the connectivity issues than exchanging them.

“The inventory situation is primarily a function of demand because we are seeing that most customers are opting to keep their units and simply update via Zune."

We are already seeing inventory of the black Lumia 900 being replenished and based on comments and AT&T retail store reps, the cyan model should be back in stock any day.

So far, it would appear that Nokia's re-entry into the North American market has gone well.  And expect the momentum to continue when the white Lumia 900 launches this weekend.  Let us hope that they have plenty of the white models on hand.

source: AllThingsD; Thanks, VaultBoy, for the tip!

On April 19, Nokia is expected to release their Q1 results.  As a precursor, they put out some initial figures, showing that despite relatively strong sales, their profits continue to shrink.  Nokia totaled €4.2 billion in phone sales, the bulk of which consisted of 71 million feature phones, Nokia's one-time bread and butter, bringing in around €2.3 billion.  Smart devices earned them about €1.7 billion.  And even though these seem like pretty big numbers, they are not enough to cover the cost of moving over to the Windows Phone platform in an attempt to gain a foothold in the smartphone arena.  The expected result is a first quarter finish 3 percent below the break-even mark. 

But this doesn't mean all doom and gloom for Nokia.  Sales of Nokia's Lumia line of phones has been solid and continue to increase.  The Lumia 900 has gotten off to a quick start and doesn't show any signs of slowing yet.  And neither does Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop.  He says that he and his crew continue "to increase the clock speed of the company" and that "the change is tangible."  Considering that they scrapped their previous operating system in favor of Microsoft's just under a year ago, and that their first devices just hit the market last quarter, it's hard to call a 3 percent loss a failure.

Read the presser after the break.

Source: Nokia

Although it's probably too early to tell how the AT&T Lumia 900 is doing (and the brunt of its popularity will undoubtedly come months from now), it's worthy to note that on Amazon Wireless, if you sort by best-sellers you get some interesting results.

For instance, by sorting under AT&T best-sellers, we can see the Lumia 900 (Black) is currently in the number #1 spot with the Cyan version holding on to number #3 (the venerable and popular Galaxy SII is in #2). That's not too bad a showing considering we're just talking about pre-orders for the phone and it has yet to get into anyone's hands, let alone reviews for the device.

Sorting without a carrier also yields some positive news with the Lumia 900 Black sitting at #6 and the Lumia 900 Cyan at #8 across all smartphones. The current number #1 position is held by the ridiculously named 'Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX 4G' which goes to show there's no lacking of bad and kitsch taste in the smartphone world.

What is perhaps most interesting, besides those solid rankings for a pre-order phone, is the fact that the Black Lumia is selling more than the Cyan. From general feedback and conversations with AT&T and Nokia, the Cyan version seemed to be the most anticipated. In fact, we're told that advertising would use the Cyan version of Nokia's phone over the Black to its more striking visual appeal.

Finally, while these pre-orders numbers are good news and it certainly reflects the buzz around the Lumia 900, as we mentioned earlier, the real test and interest will be weeks from now after the advertising blitz has kicked in, awareness goes up and the popular culture catches on. That's when we'll see whether Nokia and AT&Ts efforts have finally paid off.

Amazon Wireless began pre-orders on March 30th and were even offering it for a penny on a new contract.

Source: Amazon Wireless 1, 2; Thanks, J4rrod, for the tip

This morning at Mobile World Congress, CEO of Nokia Stephen Elop commented on their recent success of announcing four new Windows Phone within one year of their famous partnership with Microsoft. He noted that they were now in 31 different markets and on 50 unique operators with increasing demand in sales everyday.

In just under a year, they've won awards for the Lumia 900, including a "Best of Show" which was a first for them and garnered high praise for the Lumia 800.

So when it came to the Lumia 710, specifically on T-Mobile which Elop pointed out was their return-device to the U.S. market, he reported with great enthusiasm that sales are "exceeding expectations" and that they are "very pleased" with its performance in the market so far. While no specific numbers were given, it appears at least that Nokia has a small hit on their hands with the Lumia 710--a device we gave high praise for--and the increasing visibility of the device e.g. LIVE! with Kelly is certainly helping too.

Quickly checking T-Mobile's page for device information, we can in fact see this being reflected. As of today, the Lumia 710 is T-Mobile's third best selling device--a level we have never seen reached for any Windows Phone in the US. Likewise, the device is in the same spot for user satisfaction with a 4.7 stars (out of 5) from 115 reviews (interestingly, the HTC Radar is number two).

The conclusion seems to be that Nokia is doing quite well with the 710 which we think is a great sign for the impending Lumia 900 on AT&T and their accompanying media campaign.

According to a report by Professeur Thibault, Microsoft France is using an external agency to help tackle sales staff issues the software giant has experienced with their mobile platform since its launch back in 2010. Nokia recently took incentives to the extreme with rewarding a top T-Mobile salesman to VIP treatment at CES 2012.

Microsoft and their hired guns will be ensuring employees at various stores around the country have effective training to sell Windows Phones. A source (which chose to remain anonymous) informed Professeur Thibalt that while he did not have confirmation to what exactly the incentives would be for sales teams across France, he was able to go into detail surrounding the training. The agency Microsoft has partnered with will be providing 30-120 minute sessions, coupled with hands-on walkthroughs and a short questionnaire at the end of the training.

Each trainer will be looking to visit up to 60 stores per month, and once stores have received the main training exercise they will be revisited 1-3 times per quarter. Although the source failed to obtain incentive details, he did mention that a free Nokia Lumia 800 or Acer Allegro could possibly be included for the staff of the store that sold the most Windows Phones. Doesn't sound like a bad combat plan.

Source: Professeur Thibault (translation)

With so much Nokia news these days, we're just going to start recapping what we can to save space around these parts.

First off is the Czech Republic where the Lumia 710 and 800 went on sale two days ago. At least one online retailer is reporting great numbers so far with Alza.cz showing the Lumia 800 as their top seller. Not a bad a start at all and something we're getting used to these days.

Next up is Indonesia. We reported earlier that that country was due to get the Lumia 710 and 800 as well and while no firm date was given, it was stated to be in February. In fact, two large big events are planned to coincide with the launch--one a massive developer day featuring 800 devs making 800 Windows Phone apps and the other a Facebook contest.

Now we're getting word that pre-orders for the devices will start on February 6th with the following offers:

• Nokia Lumia 800 - IDR 5.250.000 (about USD 585), incl. Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster (WH-930) and 12-month of Unlimited Internet package by XL.
• Nokia Lumia 710 - IDR 2.900.000 (about USD 325), incl. Nokia Purity Stereo Headset by Monster (WH-920) and 12-month of Unlimited Internet package by XL

Heck, we're even hearing that some Nokia flagship stores are being renamed, temporarily, to Lumia stores. Not a bad deal and we're real excited to see how Indonesia kicks things off here as they will be an important market to watch.

Source: Alza.cz (Czech); Thanks Ondřej Š, for the tip; Tekno Kompas (Indonesia) 1, 2; TribunNews; Thanks, ruddevil, for the links

According to a report at e's Phoneblog and Kauppalehti the Lumia 800, which launched in Finland yesterday, has been selling at a fairly fast rate. Jonne works at Gigantti (an electronics retailer) and states that while he doesn't know the exact Lumia 800 sale figures at the store, he has sold more handsets than he did N8s within two days of the Symbian handset being launched. 

Elisa's Executive Vice President, Henri Korpi, told Kauuppalehti today that they have sold out of Nokia's mid-range Windows Phone in some of their stores. Still no numbers provided, but we are expecting to see some positive feedback should figures become available. What makes this story extra special is that Lumia 800 buyers in the land of Nokia are braving snow storms (-27°C) to reach retailers. Now that is dedication.

Source: Kauppalehti.fi (translation), via: e's Phoneblog

Morgan Stanley, a global financial services firm, has predicted that Nokia will be shipping 37 million Windows Phones in 2012. Not only that, but they expect the number to almost double in 2013 to 64 million. This is depending on how aggressive Microsoft, Nokia and AT&T market the Lumia 900. If Europe is anything to go by, we're sure Nokia will be pushing extremely hard with the software giant and U.S. carrier close behind. With a rumoured $200 million budget available between them, we should look forward to some interesting promotions and events being set up.

As Steve Ballmer mentioned at CES, they've got a long way to go, but the road is looking positive should a strong push be effective.

Source: AllThingsD

In what has to be a great sign for Nokia (and Windows Phone), the Lumia 800 is the top selling phone at the Australian site in the last week.  And the popular Windows Phone has some stiff competition to boot, beating out the Amazon Kindle Fire, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the iPad 2. The black, 16GB version is selling for a very reasonable $578, which is helping sales.

While reports of the Lumia 800 selling well have been coming in, they're mostly anecdotal. This information from Expansys seems to be the first, really solid evidence from a reseller that Nokia's marketing efforts are paying off and resonating with the public.

Still, the UK version of the site has the Lumia 800 at #7, which isn't too bad but obviously it can stand to gain some ground.

Source: Expansys AU; Thanks, rxsoob, for the tip!