I noticed very few phone manufacturers, with the notable exception of Apple, eagerly give out actual sales figures following the opening weekend of a brand new device. Unfortunately the same can also be said for Nokia, which recently began sales in 6 select markets of the Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 710, and have subsequently not published any results.
According to reports the expectation was that Nokia would ship approximately 2 million units in the first quarter. Those estimates have been sharply reduced to 0.5-1 million in the first quarter, this is a clear disappointment considering the N8 which launched at the same time last year sold in the order of 3.5 million units. I noticed a recently published article by WPCentral attempting to use the relative position (2 and 3) in the “Most popular smartphones” sort, to indicate positive sales. Clearly this analysis is fundamentally flawed as there is no indication as to what the range of the values could possibly be.
I have been impressed with the marketing efforts across both New York and London, but as a Micro ISV (see: home app developer) I am watching the sales numbers very carefully and trying to align my future products and releases with the long term viability of the platform. So far I am ahead of the game, my company is profitable and my monthly balance sheet is healthy, however, unless there are significant improvements in sales I cannot justifiably invest much more time and effort into flogging a dead horse.
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