Nokia Lumia sales up, losses narrow in Q1

Nokia’s slow but steady steps along the road to recovery continued in the first quarter, amid growing demand for its top-end Lumia smartphones.

Sales of the Windows Phone-powered handsets hit 5.6 million during the first three months of the year. That represents a 27 per cent rise from the final quarter of 2012, with two-thirds made up by newer Windows Phone 8 smartphones.

Rising demand for Lumia phones was not enough, however, to arrest a decline in revenue from handset sales, which dropped by 30 per cent to 1.59 billion Euros.

More positively, losses were down to 339 million Euros (£290 million), compared with a loss of 1.57 billion Euros for the year-ago period.

Francisco Jeronimo, research manager at IDC, claimed the figures now point to a promising next 12 months for the one-time smartphone to dogs.

He said: "They are on a right track and we can see a much better year for Nokia smartphones.

“They are far from volumes of Samsung and Apple, but that is not where Nokia is trying to compete now. Nokia is trying to go for the mass market.”