The iconic Finnish company no longer has a devices and services business, it has sold that to Microsoft, which closed the acquisition last week. Though in its last earnings report as an independent manufacturer Nokia revealed that it saw a 30 percent decline in sales during the first quarter as opposed to the same time last year. Not only were feature phone sales were down, even the Asha and Lumia models were struggling in the market.
The company didn’t give any concrete sales numbers for Lumia devices, which are all powered by Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. Though it did agree that due to “strong momentum of competing smartphone platforms,” its smartphone lineup wasn’t able to perform spectacularly well.
Nokia’s feature phones also registered a stark decline in sales during this period. This widened the company’s operating loss to €326 million in the first quarter of 2014 as opposed to €73 million loss in the same time last year.
With the acquisition of Nokia’s devices and services division Microsoft is now its biggest Windows Phone vendor. The company has officially stepped into the smartphone manufacturing arena and that first thing it needs to do is come up with a brand that will be used for future smartphones. To aid Windows Phone’s progress Microsoft recently signed a handful of new OEMs who have committed to developing new WP devices.
Though that simply means increased competition for Redmond’s own phone arm. Even if other OEMs are able to take Windows Phone forward in terms of market share, Microsoft wouldn’t exactly be pleased if its handset division kept losing money quarter after quarter. The company really needs to hit the ground running with its next flagship to ensure that this acquisition doesn’t make it regret its decision in the future.
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