Nokia announced its Q4 results for 2012 yesterday and while the company showed a net profit of €202 million ($270 million) compared with a loss of $1 billion a year earlier, revenue fell 20 percent as it failed to make gains in the fiercely competitive smartphone market.
As far smartphone sales were concerned, the company revealed it had managed to sell only 15.9 million smartphones last quarter, down from 19.6 million in the same quarter for last year.
During the investor call, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop dismissed any rumours of a possible Nokia and Android tie-up. He told reporters that “We are not in a situation where we are considering something other than Windows Phone combined with what we’re doing with Asha.”
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. AFP
He was also confident that Windows Phone 8 would soon pose a tough challenge to Android. “We are clearly innovating with Microsoft around Windows Phone, and are focused on taking that to lower and lower price points. You will see that over time compete with Android. But at the same time we’ve said consistently and we’re just beginning to see it in the Asha full-touch products — that we will continue to innovate around our Asha smartphone line in order to compete with the very lowest levels of Android.”
Nokia has launched a series of low-cost Asha smartphones in the hope of appealing to those with tighter budgets and the desire to buy a smartphone.
He also said that with Android, the growing problem was the closed ecosystem which was off-putting for customers and thus the time was right for other options to emerge and succeed.
Elop also promised hat the company was working on fixing the supply issues with its new Lumia 920 devices.
Meanwhile Nokia also confirmed that it was bringing its own Symbian OS to an end. In a statement the company said, “The Nokia 808 PureView, a device which showcases our imaging capabilities and which came to market in mid-2012, was the last Symbian device from Nokia.”
