According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service, the Nokia Lumia smartphone family with Microsoft operating system has outshipped Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Android family in the first three quarters after their respective commercial launches. It is a relatively encouraging start for Nokia and Microsoft.
We estimate Nokia shipped 6.9 million Lumia smartphones with the Microsoft Windows Phone operating system cumulatively worldwide during the first three quarters after commercial launch, from Q4 2011 to Q2 2012. This compares with 3.7 million units of the rival Apple iPhone family in its first three quarters during 2007, and 1.3 million units for the Samsung Android family in its first three quarters during 2009.
Based on historical shipment benchmarks, Nokia’s new Lumia portfolio is therefore performing reasonably well. Some of the pessimism surrounding Nokia and Microsoft’s emerging partnership so far may be misplaced.
However, Nokia and Microsoft are clearly not out of the woods yet. With a new Apple iPhone 5 expected in Q4 2012, and Samsung’s Galaxy S3 selling in huge quantities, Nokia will need to pull something impressive out of the bag for the next-generation Windows Phone 8 launch later this year to sustain its tentative early momentum.
More detail can be viewed by clients of our WSS service in this published report.