Nokia today issued an interim financial report for its Q2 2012. Sales rose marginally to €7.5 billion from €7.4 billion the previous quarter, resulting in a total operating loss of €826 million (around $1 billion). Net cash still rose by €102 million (around $125 million) thanks in part to licensing royalties and platform support payments from Microsoft.
Nokia shipped 83.7 million phones, including 4 million Lumia smartphones, worldwide in Q2. In North America, Nokia shipped 600,000 mobile phones, a figure that includes Lumia smartphones as well as non-Windows Phone devices. This suggests that its “Operation Rolling Thunder” marketing effort fells short of Nokia’s expectations. Canadian sales numbers are not broken out of the North American ones.
According to Nokia CEO Stephen Elop:
“Nokia is taking action to manage through this transition period. While Q2 was a difficult quarter, Nokia employees are demonstrating their determination to strengthen our competitiveness, improve our operating model and carefully manage our financial resources.
We shipped four million Lumia Smartphones in Q2, and we plan to provide updates to current Lumia products over time, well beyond the launch of Windows Phone 8. We believe the Windows Phone 8 launch will be an important catalyst for Lumia.”
Nokia saw the average selling price (ASP) of its Smart Devices rise from €143 ($176) last quarter to €151 ($185) this quarter as it continued its transition to Lumia devices which have a higher ASP than Symbian devices. Still, the Lumia line’s ASP fell itself as Nokia began to offer lower-end Windows Phone devices such as the Nokia Lumia 610 and cutting the price of higher-end models, such as AT&T’s Lumia 900 recent cut.
Nokia expects that the next quarter will be as “difficult” as recent quarters. Its Smart Devices group will face challenges due to product transitions (especially as Windows Phone 7.5 devices will not be upgraded to Windows Phone 8).
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