back to article Lumia sales fail to set world alight

Nokia's Lumia handset is barely shifting at all, according to figures from consumer price-comparison site Mobiles Please, though it still manages to be the best selling Windows Phone. Mobiles Please bases the stats on more than 5,000 sales across its family of sites during November, and finds that the Nokia Lumia 800 made up …

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    1. Charles Manning

      re: Windows is a tarnished brand

      Absolutely correct that Windows is a broken brand.

      How well would Xbox sell if it was called WinGame?

      But it isn't clear that WinPho is any use as a product. Call it Xphone and they won't come running.

      Braning isn't enough It didn't work for Kin or Zune.

  1. Daniel Bower

    If only people would take it seriously...

    I actually have a Nokia 800 and honestly, its the best phone I've ever had. I've had an N8, various android devices although by my own admission have a huge and probably somewhat baseless hatred of Apple (although my mum has every Apple device going so I have used an iPhone quite extensively).

    WinPho 7.5 is a joy to use - slick, fast, intuitive and the People hub is genius. I've shown it to all my friends who have either some flavour of HTC or Samsung android device or an iPhone and they're all really impressed.

    OK, if you like customising screen layouts etc you're out of luck but I don't. I just want a phone that works and works well and the 800 does just that.

    Trouble is, I don't think anyone is going to take it seriously unless there's a very slick and prolonged advertising campaign to raise awareness...

    1. bdam
      FAIL

      From what I've seen,

      microsofts big innovation

      was to cut off words half

      way across the screen

      rather than resize or lay

      them out properly like

      other phones do.

      Here's that paragraph again especially for WP7 fans:

      From wha

      microsoft

      was to cu

      way acros

      rather tha

      them out

      other pho

      1. zerocred

        That is jus

        brillia

        I also hat

        the stupi

        black stri

        up the righ

        side. Make

        the whole

        screen lob

        sided.

        Please Nokia skunkworks - have an Android or something else for a plan B. And have /slightly/ rounded corners so not to infring apples patent/design/copyright/trademark on curves that are non straight..

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      LOL

      More Microsoft astroturfing, pretending there is a real userbase of satisified owners...

      Incredibly, there is even a fake website called wmpoweruser or something, that's entirely fictional viral marketing from Microsoft pretending there is a grassroots userbase of happy WP7 owners...

      Of course Microsoft pulled this same stunt with the Xbox, and got away with it, lets hope the internet citizens are slightly more clued up this time....

      1. david bates

        I had to

        read that 3 times until I got it into my head it was Windows Phone and not Word Perfect...

  2. Arctic fox
    Headmaster

    The information currently available does seem rather conflicting.

    On the one hand we have major carriers claiming that the Lumia 800 is doing well (not just in the UK but in Holland, France and Germany) and on the other we have this survey which says the opposite. I took a look just now at Amazon in their sim free mobile phone category and chose to sort under bestsellers. Ignoring all the feature phones and all the smartphones *significantly* under £400 we arrive at the following top ten. I do not get the impression that the Lumia is doing quite as badly as this survey would suggest although it is clearly not "setting the world alight". Other than that this little list does appear to confirm that Sammy has a great deal to smile about!

    1. Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II 16 GB (Black)

    2. Galaxy Nexus 16GB

    3. Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II 16 GB (White)

    4. BlackBerry Bold 9900

    5. Apple iPhone 4S 16GB Black

    6. HTC Sensation XE

    7. APPLE iPhone 4 16 GB

    8. Nokia Lumia 800 (Black)

    9. Motorola RAZR

    10.Apple iPhone 4 16GB Black Factory Unlocked

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bestsellers-Electronics-Mobile-Phones-Smartphones/zgbs/electronics/356496011/ref=zg_bs_nav_ce_3_1340509031#3

    1. Robert E A Harvey

      crikey. Razr coming up fast there.

      1. Arctic fox
        Thumb Up

        RE: "crikey. Razr coming up fast there"

        It is isn't it? Mind you I am not exactly surprised it does appear to be very fine kit and has attracted some very favourable reviews on a number of serious web-sites including, natch, Reghardware. The one that does surprise me a bit given the problems that RIM has had lately is their highest end offering at number 4. I'm not dissing the phone you understand it is just that they have been in some fairly heavy weather in recent times and that does not exactly help when trying to sell a device in that price segment! As far as the Lumia goes this list would seem to suggest that it is doing all right albeit not near well enough yet to give Nokia any reason to feel that they are yet out of the woods.

  3. Mikel
    Thumb Up

    No Santa Rally for WP7

    Nor Nokia either. I guess that's that.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Will WP7 sell more than Kin?

    It's not looking like it so far.

  5. twilkins

    @Arctic Fox, in the white hot world of amazon mobile phone sales, things change so rapidly if you blink you might miss them. Now, at 08:43 on 23rd Dec the top sellers are:

    1. Samsung Galaxy S2 (Black)

    2. HTC Wildfire S (Black)

    3. Big button easy phone

    4. Big button easy phone (new design)

    5. Samsung B2100

    6. Nokia 1616 Black

    7. Samsung Galaxy Ace

    8. Samsung Galaxy S2 (White)

    9. Samsung Galaxy Nexus

    10. Blackberry Curve

    Still, I'll bet Nokia are pleased with those highly profitable 1616 sales (selling for £22 each). I know I'm glad I offloaded my Nokia shares after first using an N97!

    1. Arctic fox

      @Twilkins: I really think old chap that you should have read my post more carefully.

      I said:

      "Ignoring all the feature phones and all the smartphones *significantly* under £400 we arrive at the following top ten."

      I made it quite clear that I had done that in order to get a comparison between phones in the *upper price segment* which is where the Lumia 800 is - albeit at the lower end of that segment. Comparing like with like in the financial sense you understand. That was the point of my list with regard to those phones for which punters are willing to plonk roughly £400 or more on the table for their newest shiny.

      1. twilkins
        FAIL

        "Ignoring all the feature phones and all the smartphones *significantly* under £400 we arrive at the following top ten."

        Still no Lumia... in the highly contrived, top 10 smartphones *not "significantly* under £400 (I've eliminated anything not over £300, for your viewing pleasure):

        1. Samsung Galaxy S2 (Black)

        2. Samsung Galaxy S2 (White)

        3. Samsung Galaxy Nexus

        4. Blackberry Bold

        5. HTC Sensation

        6. Apple iPhone 4S 16Gb

        7. Apple iPhone 4 16Gb

        8. Sony Ericsson Experia Arc S

        9. HTC Sensation XE

        10. Samsung Galaxy Note

        Interesting to note that many of those handsets are priced higher than the Lumia, so people are not choosing based on price alone. There are also many Android phones (and some iPhones) that fall under the £300 mark.

        1. Paul Shirley

          Selecting just by tprice is blatant fiddling the figures. At a stroke it rules out devices with comparable hardware just because they're better value. The lumia is far from

          High end hardware with premium street pricing.

          Filter by comparable hardware and it will fall much further down the popularity list. Even this fiddled filtering shows it only limping into the premium niche, while every other producier targets the whole budget to premium range getting sales at all levels.

  6. Andy 70

    I have one. and i like it.

    but hey, haters gonna hate.

  7. Phoenix50
    Devil

    So many Microsoft haters in this discussion.

    I'm sure you're all sitting there loving every minute of it - every Microsoft "fail" get you just that little bit more excited.

    They deserve a *lot* of criticism for their business practices over the years. But I don't think the criticism of WP7 is deserving. People say they've received derision from critics and pundits alike - but they haven't. Most critics agree that it's a good effort on their part - you only have to scour the internet to realise that.

    And yes, before someone finds a scathing review, I'm aware that you can't please everyone.

    But I find it fascinating watching the tech world step away from the shadow of Microsoft and into the now ubiquitous shadows of Apple and Google.

    How are they different? How are their busines practices *any* different from the Microsoft of old? Sure they dress differently, but it's the same beast underneath those clothes - they are company's who are out to profit from you, just like all the others.

    It's all swings and roundabouts - twenty years from now (maybe longer?) somone else will have come along, and Google and Apple will begin to fade with the setting sun. They'll be delcared "over", "finished", "yesterday's tech companies" - it's not a possiblity, it's inevitable. That's just life, that's technology.

    So my friends, in this season of goodwill to all, be you a "Fandroid" or an "iTard" enjoy your moment in the sun - for it won't last forever.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why, you make them sound almost reasonable. it's just like the little detail of poor little picked-on Microsoft extorting $5 per handset from Android, which is largely causing this utter revulsion, has all been forgotten.

      1. Ilgaz

        Blame google

        And which genius came up with the idea of using Microsoft fat file system on a Linux os?

    2. Arctic fox
      Thumb Up

      @Phoenix50: Too much like common sense..........

      ...............those it applies to will not listen to a word - unfortunately.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      @Phoenix

      I don't think its MS bashing / hating here perse, simply people who share their dislike of this phone. And lets be honest; right from the launch date the WM7 OS showed /many/ aspects in which it simply lacked heavily.

      Even the simple things; what is more common than to put an mp3 onto your phone and use that as a ringtone? WM7 wasn't capable of doing that, only after an OS upgrade. Or what about being able to transfer files to and from your Windows PC? WM6 has an explorer which was capable to access remote Window shares; ideal on a device which supported wifi. But WM7? No more. Say I want to exchange Outlook contact information with my phone; I can't unless I put said information online first. Only then can I download it to my phone.

      The latter example is an epic failure IMO. Heck; its what made Java ME so inaccessible on phones; even if you had a midlet worked out you still needed to download it through the phone's browser because in many cases you could not install midlets while connecting the phone using an USB cable. Thus making "phone development" a lot harder than it should have been. Sun learned this lesson; why didn't MS pick up on this? No; if you develop for your Windows Phone you'll face the exact same limitations.

      So IMO its not only about 'hating' or ''disliking Microsoft'. Most people simply recognize a lot of limitations and comment on those.

      1. admiraljkb
        Meh

        @ShelLuser @Phoenix....

        I have to agree. I'm not an MS hater either. I used Winmobe for quite a while prior to switching to Android. Truthfully the only reason I switched was due to it getting stagnant, and the everytime the Carriers got ahold of it, the kept tweaking on it til it didn't work. Soooo, go over to XDA, get decent Winmobe firmware that has been stripped down and actually works, and voila. WM6 wasn't *actually* that sucky. Android is the successor of it though, and is even more easily tweaked on than WM6 for the "hobbyist" set.

        WM7 looks like MS tossed out both the good and the bad parts of WM6, and are left with a phone that is no longer agreeable to the power user. There is already a non-power user/simplistic phone on the market, and it is called iPhone. WM7 can't compete with the Android phones on the high end because it isn't flexible enough, and it can't compete with the "simple" market because they've already got iPhones... Is it a *bad* phone? The reviews say it is *ok*, and I'll believe them. Looking over one of them briefly myself, it seems ok, not great. Nothing to really stand out enough though, other than a bunch of tiles on the UI which I really didn't like.

        As a former WM6 power user, I'd like to see a new version of WM6 which has been modernized under the hood with some light UI tweaks to bring it inline with capacitance touch, and I miss the handwriting recognition. It was so nice to be able to take quick notes by just writing them down. No stupid tiny keyboards (virtual or physical), no swyping, just write them down. THAT is the killer feature that I want from Winmobe which would get me back into the WM camp. Nowadays, I've got a 4.5" Galaxy SII which rocks in almost every way(especially a big legible screen), except I have to break out the laptop, or pen and paper when I want to take notes...

    4. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Childcatcher

      Cry for Microsoft!

      Because the evil that is them hides inside everyone - EVERYONE I SAY!!

      Monopol Capitalists will always try to profit from you, by RUTHLESSLY SELLING YOU PHONES YOU LIKE! Are you prepared to recant your harsh statements against the Beast Of Redmond and its nether products as you look upon the new trap into which you have fallen unawares?

      "I don't think the criticism of WP7 is deserving."

      Indeed, Word Perfect 7 was a pretty good program.

      1. admiraljkb
        Coat

        @Monsters

        Strolling through memory lane. Wordperfect7.. ahhhhh That *was* a good program, with all the crashes fixed (I'd had) from previous WP efforts on Windows. I've got that and a CD for WP Suite 8 as well. It was far too late of course. Crappy Windows versions of WP 5.1 and 6.0 had long since sealed WP's fate.

        I keep typing WM7 instead of WP7 for the same reason. WP == WordPerfect. MS Marketing should really research this stuff before giving their product the initials of a failed competitor, even if it was 20 years ago. In this case it was a failed competitor that also missed a market transition and whose product got nearly wiped off the planet as a result. Personally I think it was a freudian slip on MS's part. :) "WP" missed the DOS to Windows market transition in 1990-1992, and now the new "WP" missed the easy to use/big screen smartphone transition that started in 2007-2008.

    5. Jim in Hayward
      FAIL

      An earlier poster got it right

      I don't buy Microsoft products. Ever. Period. They deserve a *lot* of criticism for their business practices over the years and also deserve to not make a single dime anymore. I even didn't buy a Ford vehicle this year because Microsoft warez was used for the audio/bluetooth stuff.

      Microsoft made their bed. No they can lay in it and sleep the sleep of death.

    6. Levente Szileszky
      WTF?

      What a thinly veiled load of MS PR BS

      Seriously...

      "How are they different? How are their busines practices *any* different from the Microsoft of old? Sure they dress differently, but it's the same beast underneath those clothes - they are company's who are out to profit from you, just like all the others."

      PLEAHHHSE. Your rather pathetic attempt to paint it as if we are against companies making profit is literally insulting - do you think anyone buys your stupid PR BS?

      And in case you are indeed mentally challenged here's a hint: no, Google is absolutely NOT like Microsoft, old or new. And the difference is exactly what everybody says here: the shady, illegal business practices, the utter lack of innovation (forget inventing) and the stupid, dumb, Ballmer-like bureaucratic approach.

      Google is nothing like that; not perfect but far from this shady, lousy behemoth, run buy disgusting office fatties like MS.

  8. KnucklesTheDog
    WTF?

    Figures

    A small point, but everyone always asserts that there is only one iPhone and then lumps together the 4S, 4 and 3GS sales figures.

    Not that it appears on that list, but people never lump together the Galaxy S and S II which is exactly the same in principle.

    With HTC it's even more complicated as they don't simply increment the number on any product for each successive phone (always), but you could if you wanted consider the Sensation as the same product line as the Desire for example, both at being the HTC flagship Android device at the time of release.

    1. admiraljkb

      iPhone "stealth" fragmentation, was Figures

      Yeah, the iPhone sales need broken out for an easy/accurate picture of the true competitive landscape. Lets take the top Samsung phone as an example. Galaxy SII's have the white and black case variants with 4 carriers in the US. That is basically 8 versions of the same phone being counted separately. The iPhones 4S has 3 variants with US carriers, but they are all lumped together, and then lumped together again with the 4 which has 2 variants, and the 3GS which only has one(?) variant. The way Apple reports its sales makes it look *MUCH* better than it would otherwise.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    It's not a bad looking phone...

    ...and Windows 7 Phone has some interesting and different approaches, but Nokia's problem is that right now, people looking to buy this sort of phone have already made their Q4/Holiday decision: wait for next year's wave of new models, buy one of the many fine Android phones, or buy an iPhone.

    That decision carries at least six months of purchasing inertia, maybe more in this economic climate, so Nokia has to really come up with something compelling to have any hope of returning to relevancy, and the Lumia, nice though it is, doesn't cut it.

    Maybe their next phone will.

  10. Ted Treen
    Trollface

    I still believe...

    ...that 98.79% of statistics are made up on the spot...

    1. BorkedAgain

      Believe what you like.

      It's 78%.

      1. Ted Treen
        Megaphone

        84.85%

        believe my figure's right...

  11. Nya
    WTF?

    Phone Shops

    Personally think MS, and through them Nokia's big problem is the telco shops. When the Lumia came out (and even this week) decided I wanted a play with it, if only to get an opinion on the thing. But no high street phone shops have it, or any WinMo (I won't call it anything else, it's still WinMo) devices at all. They just don't stock them. So is it any wonder that you go into a shop and get a barrage of Android, RIM and even Apple stuff, but even in the dark dusty corner there isn't any sign of a Lumia.

    Think MS and Nokia in this case, has more a staff perception and store willingness to stock, to over come as well as normal marketing if it is to get any market share.

  12. JDX Gold badge

    Found one!

    My Phones 4U had a couple, but they were simply placed in the lineup alongside the various Android phones... no splashy "look at Windows Phone" posters for brand awareness.

    I got the impression MS would practically be paying people to stand outside the shops pushing the Lumia in peoples' faces to get awreness up!

    1. foo_bar_baz

      Strange

      All the other stores are pushing them because they want to dump their poorly selling stock...

      ...if you are to believe the posts above.

      Which is it? Oh, it's just a nerdy forum hate frenzy. I get it now.

  13. divx
    Alert

    Try them all

    Personal experience and views:

    The iPhone is too expensive and i don't have any other apple products. Everyone and their dog has one now, so its also a little boring.

    The Android OS (I've tried S2 and HTC HD) is nice, i just find that there's too many ways of doing one thing. To me, the whole "feel" just seems a little fragmented.

    Playing around with Lumia WP7.5 was a breath of fresh air. Simplistic, integrated and well priced. I have a Windows running on my laptop so it feels like the right choice.

    Now that Nokia are selling WP people will buy them. More people will see the WP OS and think "that looks nice" (just as they did with iOS and Android) and it will become popular - watch this space.

    (So many haters here who haven't had a good look at the available options)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Signed up just to say that, hey?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Its getting just like Slashdot round here

        There's a well-known pattern on Slashdot where any article critical of Microsoft is immediately, and I mean first-post-get-in-there-you-F5-keyboard-warrier, responded to with a generic few paragraphs of cut-n-pasted pro-Microsoft blurb. Its obvious because it always gets in early and doesn't really address the story. Why, its almost as if Microsoft have put aside some of their immense marketing budget for an army of paid shills to constantly monitor all the key influential sites this way.

      2. divx
        WTF?

        Yeah, i did.

        Been a long reader of the reg. I felt like i should say something about the story.

        Nice to see you have a hidden identity and in no way contributed to the story.

        Don't understand why so many people are hating?

        1. Hardcastle the ancient
          Stop

          @Divx

          No, I have a name. I have no idea why that posted as an AC. Technology, I expect.

          I have a deep distrust of Microsoft because they have had so much of my money under false pretences already. Three earlier windows phones (HP) among them. Broken promises about being able to upgrade the OS, regular hang ups and lost data, and a synchronising battle with Microsoft's own Outlook, that never quite worked.

          I am sick and tired of being told on the desktop 'the next version won't do that', and being charged ever more for the next version. Which of course, still does that. I despair of an organisation where you can't even report a bug without paying for a maintainence contract, a contract that gets you no maintainence at all.

          In GPL software I can report bugs, see other people's reports, and follow the progress (or lack of it). In MS land all I can do is wait, give them more money, and hope that bugs are now fixed. I can't even find out what the new version does without buying it.

          I loathe the way they blackmail hardware vendors so I cannot buy a machine without their nasty infecting OS. I despise the way they are taking licence fees on android phones for unspecified and secret patent infringement. I really, really, don't like the way they have bought up and corrupted or shut down a steady stream of innovative small companies. And I really really dislike the arrogance of things like WGA or having to re-validate XP because I have replaced a faulty CD drive.

          And I deeply resent the time and money I have invested, over and over agin, in new API, languages, and tools only to have the legs kicked out from beneath me over and over again.

          Hatred is earned, like respect. By their works shall ye know them.

      3. foo_bar_baz
        Mushroom

        LOL

        Just look at "Bob Vistakin" who's signed up to reply *5 times* - so far - in this thread. Astroturfers only in Microsoft payroll?

        1. Robert E A Harvey

          Astroturfers

          I wonder if the astroturfers ever report back to M$ what the rest of us are saying?

  14. PaulR79
    FAIL

    Counting iPhone 3GS too?

    If you're going to throw in silly things like a two year old Apple handset then we can safely throw in all varieties of the original Samsung Galaxy S (Captivate etc in he USA) and the newer Galaxy Nexus. Even ignoring this I've never heard of this company and a sample size of 5,000 is tiny. This is almost as bad as some survey on TechRadar that was run on a few thousand people and ended up claiming 24% of the world now uses NFC. Pointless findings from an insignificant company that has far too much time on its hands.

  15. Paul Shirley

    epic astroturfing

    ...but doing it on the Reg site is a complete waste of the Microsoft PR slushfund ;)

  16. tommy060289
    Happy

    Ive played and really like the lumia and WP7

    Unfortunately, I'm likely to continue only 'liking' it as I walk into an Apple store late next year to purchase an iPhone 5.

    I doesn't really give me much reason to switch and the iPhones ability to simply plug in and my new phone will be updated with all the details from my 3GS means it really isn't worth the hassle of switching to a different eco-system

  17. OrsonX
    Flame

    Nokia used to be good...

    Aaah the N95, beloved of so many....

    If you listed every feature & then wrote FAIL next to each feature then that would be 100% accurate.

    Nokia were already failing then, they continued to fail with a glacially slow response to the original iPhone (3 years was it?). And now with the Lumia their superb build quality is again apparent, with the SIM card door bending for everyone who cares to open the door...., i.e., everyone.

    And, in their final act of FAILness, in the week MS buy Skype they release a phone w/o a front facing camera.

    I am pleased they are failing for the POS they sold me that was the N95 (and yes I did get it replaced..., and replaced....).

  18. jim 45

    what Phoenix50 said

    A year ago I walked into a Microsoft store expecting to fiddle with a Windows 7 phone for 2 minutes and walk out laughing at it. Instead I tried it for 5 minutes and walked out the door owning it. WP7 is a clean, unified, intuitive, uncluttered and very modern looking platform. My wife likes it too, and when her contract is up she's ditching Android and getting WP7.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Me too...

      I never thought I'd own an MS phone until I actually tried one. I wanted to replace my old Nokia xpress music 5800 having been a long time Nokia user and thought I'd give everything on the market a fair go. For me the HTC Trophy stood out, I realise it's not for everyone, but some of the rabid anti-anything-MS posts here are pretty tedious and clearly from people who have never used anything except their favoured smartphone os.

  19. Nick L
    Thumb Up

    I'm posting from mine

    I've had my Lumia (a word not in the phone's dictionary!) for 3 weeks now. It has replaced my original iPhone.

    Good points? The os is great. Really. The hub approach is really very smart, and the level of integration of social stuff throughout the phone is great. So far everyone who has seen and played with my phone has been impressed, particularly with people hub, pictures, grouping etc

    But not enough to want one instead of an iPhone 4s...

    The phone never feels less than responsive. It zips

    The soft keyboard is good: better than iPhone. This post was typed on the Lumia...

    The hardware is good too. Mostly.

    Bad points

    no vpn. Inexcusable for the demographic aimed at.

    Battery... Charge every day.

    That flap covering the micro usb port is not long for this world

    camera white balance is, bluntly, exceptionally poor

    Quality of pictures is only just acceptable

    It's a great bit of kit that I am evangelising, but it needs some polishing.

    1. Bob Vistakin
      Pint

      I've had my L

      original iPh

      Good point

      integration

      with my ph

      etc etc

      Sometimes, its just too easy to take this piss when your'e dealing with m$

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