Lumia Sales Dips 28 Percent in Q3 to 2.9 Million: Can Lumia 920, 820 Help Nokia Regain Market Supremacy in 4Q12?

Nokia has released its Q3 earning report in which it has quoted an operating loss of $754 million in three months and that the sales of the Lumia smartphones have dropped by 1.1 million between Q2 and Q3. However, the Asha touchscreen handsets have helped Nokia by scoring a sales of 76.6 million units.

Even after the dip, Nokia has informed that there is a growing sign, as this is the first time that Nokia has shown a under a billion loss figure showing $754 in one year. Also, the main reason for the drop in the sales of Lumia devices is that the existing smartphones would not receive the Windows Phone 8 upgrade.

Though, the Q4 will be a tough one for Nokia, analysts predict that the release of Lumia 820 and Lumia 920 could help the company in gaining some profit.

New Lumias Might Light up the Sales

Microsoft is all set to officially release its next iteration of Windows Phone OS – Windows Phone 8 on October 29, following which, its hardware partners including Samsung, Nokia and HTC will also release their products running the new version of the OS.

Nokia unveiled the Windows Phone 8 based Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 smartphones on September 5 at a special event in New York. The smartphones with groundbreaking features like wireless charging and glove-friendly touchscreen are considered the most innovative smartphones unleashed by the company so far.

Now, there is interesting news for Nokia fans waiting for these new Lumia handsets to come to India. Earlier, there were numerous reports suggesting that Nokia will release them in November, however, a TheMobileIndian report claims that Nokia will release Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 Windows Phone 8 smartphone in India on October 23.

Lumia 920 is priced at $801 (approx. Rs 43,000) and Lumia 820 is priced at $640 (approx. Rs 34,000) in Russia, where the handsets are available for pre-order.

Reportedly, the pre-orders for the Nokia Lumia 920 have been going strong in Italy and the units held aside for pre-order have been sold out. The momentum for the flagship Windows Phone 8 model remains so strong that in France, pre-orders for the phone place it on top of the PhoneHouse top 50 sales list. Right behind the Nokia Lumia 920 is the 16GB Apple iPhone 5. The PhoneHouse list measures sales from October 8 through the 14.

Talking about the specs, Lumia 920 packs a 4.5 inch capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels along with PureMotion HD and ClearBlack display technologies. The handset is equipped with an 8.7MP rear camera with PureView branding, 1.2MP front camera, 1.5GHz dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 1GB RAM, 32GB internal memory, NFC connectivity and 2,000 mAh Li-ion battery.

Coming to the Lumia 820, the handset features a 4.3 inch AMOLED ClearBlack capacitive touchscreen display with 800 x 480 pixels. The handset has a 1.5GHz dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB internal memory, 8MP camera with the PureView technology, a VGA front camera video calling, NFC and 1,650 mAh Li-ion battery. Lets have a look at the Top 5 software features of the duo handsets.

Price Strategy to Spur the Sales in India

Nokia has huge expectations with its Lumia 920 and 820 devices. The company which was once regarded as the largest mobile phone maker is now struggling to maintain its position in the competitive smartphone segment. Hence, Nokia is now trying to retain its market position by highlighting its new partnership with Microsoft in releasing smartphones with Windows Phone operating system.

Many of the analysts feel the expensive pricing to be a major reason for Nokia’s failure in marketing its products. But some analysts in the international marketplace suggest this claim to be pointless as pricing has not affected the sales of Apple products such as iPhone 5 which is comparatively more expensive to Nokia’s offerings.

However, to win the smartphone race Nokia will have to price the new Lumia 820 and 920 handsets very competitively against other major brands in the market including, Samsung Galaxy S3, iPhone 5 and HTC phones. Right, now the predecessor of the two handsets, Nokia Lumia 900 is available in the Indian market at a price tag of around Rs 30,000, the Finnish phone maker would have to price the Nokia Lumia 820 and 920 handsets around the same price tag to regain market supremacy and its sales figures.