back to article SatNad failure as Lumia income drops over 50% at Microsoft

Despite focusing exclusively on budget phones in 2015, Microsoft's Lumia revenues fell ... a lot. Year-on-year revenue declined 54 per cent in full year Q1 2015. We have to extrapolate the volumes from revenue, but assuming the Average Selling Prices (ASP) and the profit margin remained the same, that translates as shipments …

  1. Paul Shirley

    waiting for win10 to be good enough?

    That's likely to be a long wait. The whole win10 everywhere idea is misguided. With the (half hearted) attempts to make win10 more desktop friendly it's heading in the wrong direction for small screens. With the repeat of "burning platform" hinted at winphone as a real mobile os isn't likely to be resurrected.

    Microsoft would need to ship phablets to make win10 a sensible mobile os. Not going to happen while Surface exists, Ballmer might have accepted cannibalising ms product lines, saner minds are in charge now. Not much saner though. Ballmer would have spent more years pushing a failed product, todays ms are more ruthless and pragmatic. If wp looks neglected there's nothing accidental about that.

    1. dogged

      Re: waiting for win10 to be good enough?

      I think MS have something up their sleeve in that regard. For a start, I think putting Panos Panay in charge of phones (and this is relatively recent, too recent to have made much of an impact on the 950/XL, those being pretty much the last gasp of Elop's Nokia) is going to change them from a design point of view.

      Secondly, I think they're, well, don't take this the wrong way but I think they're giving up on the idea of the smartphone as a thing, not just their own but also Apple's and Google's visions of the product.

      Surface seems to be almost all about hybridization. It's not one device, it's two (or more, if you count sketchpad) devices in one. I think this is where Windows 10 Mobile is going and Continuum is a good clue as to that.

      I think the Lumia brand is probably dead, but we should expect Surface phone devices. The fun bit is guessing what else they'll be.

  2. Russell Hancock

    It's a shame... I Guess

    I don't like the way the Microsoft phones have been abandoned - but then there has not been a standout feature on a Lumia for a while now - The 1020 (Yes, i'm biased, i own one) had a camera that still beats everything else but then nothing else.

    Why would you choose Lumia now? There are more android options or you buy an iPhone - What's the reason to get the Lumia?

    I hope there is a new version of the 1020 with a new version of the camera - make it quicker, give it 4k recording (or 40k recording!). I really like Windows Phone but can't see me replacing my 1020 for a while.

    1. AMBxx Silver badge
      Windows

      Re: It's a shame... I Guess

      Another 1020 owner here. Love the camera quality, but why so slow? Great for posed pictures or landscapes, not so good for action shots.

      I just hope Windows 10's email app improves greatly, or I'm off to BB.

      1. Hellcat

        Re: It's a shame... I Guess

        1020 owners assemble. Good now we're all here (insert # WinPhone users joke here)... dropping to 5mp lets you take another shot within 4 seconds of pressing the button. About half of that is it focusing. Running the full 34MP does however take much longer.

        For action shots I find the smart sequence does work, and the effects can give interesting results aside from just choosing the best shot.

        If you're on Win10 that's just unbearably slow currently. Hoping they fix that closer to Phone10 release or I'll be holding off upgrading as long as possible.

      2. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: It's a shame... I Guess

        Another 1020 owner here. Love the camera quality, but why so slow?

        Because the Lumia with Windows didn't get the same dedicated image processing hardware as the 808 Pureview did, which is why the 808 not only gets better image quality in most conditions, but also does it very rapidly.

    2. Bob Vistakin
      Pint

      Re: It's a shame... I Guess

      It's time to piss all over another microsoft burning platform, except this one didn't take much to extinguish at all.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Windows 10

    Why would anybody want a Windows phone with 10 on it? We know that that OS is spyware. Having it on your PC and phone just makes you twice as stupid. M$ track record of abandoning phones makes it impossible for serious consideration.

    1. dogged
      WTF?

      Re: Windows 10

      Yeah, you should totally get Android instead, right AC?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Windows 10

        "totally get"? Is that Oxford English or is it American? I suspect the latter, and the sentiment, is that Microsoft speaking? I don't mind Microsoft making such declarations, but I do object to them pretending to be an ordinary commenter.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Windows 10

      We know that that OS is spyware.

      We know that any phone OS is spyware. FTFY.

      I was distinctly underwhelmed by the Windows phone my wife brought home the other (new work phone), but let's be clear that there's no volume phone OS that isn't spying on you, so you can hardly hold that against Microsoft.

      1. Longtemps, je me suis couche de bonne heure

        Re: Windows 10

        I think you can, actually...

    3. jason 7

      Re: Windows 10

      FFS grow up and move on.

    4. Aoyagi Aichou

      Re: Windows 10

      Actually, WP8 is much worse than W10. Then again, the cut-down version called W10M or whatever will probably be the same.

  4. Craig 2

    Their phone business strategy resembles a motorway pile up: It only takes one asshole up front to cause carnage & mayhem behind....

  5. Warm Braw

    Maybe Microsoft is just waiting until the WM10 platform is presentable

    Maybe Microsoft is just waiting until they work out what the WM10 platform is for. It's clearly no longer about a universal platform across phones, tablets and "traditional" computers - since there won't be any phones or tablets using it (give or take the rounding error). WM10 may lack some polish, but you can't say it isn't stable now - "stable" in the sense of "the horse has bolted".

  6. ScissorHands
    Facepalm

    Self-fulfilling prophecy

    Right. So everybody and their uncle says that Windows has an app gap, then say that Microkia is crazy to pursue a "volume strategy" to entice users and provide a reason for more apps, then they spend a year roasting Microsoft for letting go of the "volume strategy", followed by "oh noes, now even the apps that were there are going away"... (???)

    The real problem is that Microsoft keeps running to where the puck has been, and rebooting the OS every time (three times, and counting...) If Nokia hadn't lost its sisu (and soul) at the crucial moment, maybe we could have avoided the third reboot, because Windows Phone would be dead already.

    1. Dave559 Silver badge

      Re: Self-fulfilling prophecy

      @ ScissorHands: Thank you for teaching us an excellent new word/concept – "sisu".

      It is indeed a very great shame that Nokia lost the plot, and there are many of us who miss them.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Everyone was crying out for a premium model. Shovelware cheap phones are fine for trying to maintain relevance in the emerging markets. But you need a premium device or two for the rest of the world.

  8. John Styles

    Sail away, sail away

    In one company I worked for, a colleague took a year's unpaid leave to sail round the world - one of these pay lots of money to live in uncomfortable cramped conditions for a year (whatever floats your boat). When he left the company had about 60 people, when he came back there were 7 (not including me, I got out at about 45) - not something that he would have been likely to have foreseen, either.

    Perhaps because he missed out on a year of tremendous ill-feeling etc. he was one of the few people who was successfully assimilated into the parent company and was there for a few years.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sail away, sail away

      Sorry, what?

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: Sail away, sail away

        David Gray tune…

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The direct result of once having a complete asshole dinosaur as CEO that belittled the iphone.

    "And it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good email machine."

    1. dogged

      Yeah he overlooked "but it does appeal to executive types because shiny > all regardless of how it actually performs." And the early iPhones were not exactly productivity monsters.

    2. Terry Barnes

      I believe you are demonstrating what Taleb memorably described as 'the fallacy of narrative'; this happened, then that happened, so this must have caused that.

    3. Aoyagi Aichou

      "And it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good email machine."

      I agree with that. Screw touch-only devices.

  10. Sureo
    Coat

    "...looks like it will be next year"

    Good thing Microsoft always has next year to look forward to.

    1. dogged

      Re: "...looks like it will be next year"

      > Good thing Microsoft always has next year to look forward to.

      Year of linux on the desktop, anyone?

  11. FlossyThePig

    So there's no sense in Microsoft duking it out in the budget volume segment

    Could someone translate that into British English.

    OED definition of duking makes no sense

    Urban Dictionary makes no sense either but definitely NSFW

    1. dogged

      Re: So there's no sense in Microsoft duking it out in the budget volume segment

      It's already British English and refers to boxing. "Put up your dukes" means "raise your fists, I am about to attempt to punch you".

  12. Zippy's Sausage Factory
    Facepalm

    The ship is sinking, and Nadella's replacing the luxury deckchairs with cheap plastic ones...

  13. RainbowTrout

    I've had a 900, 920, and am now on a 1520. Will the 950XL be a worthy replacement to the 1520?

    1. dogged

      Probably, yes. I'm thinking of picking one up because my 1520 has a cracked screen and loose mSD card bracket which means I have to reset the damn phone to get it to notice there's an SD card and my 930 has a scratched screen (I really should use a wallet thing) and this infuriating bug where raising it to my ear causes the screen to black out and refuse to re-illuminate. As you can imagine, catching an IVR system is seriously fucking annoying.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Hi Bill, Hi Steve :o)

  14. Mikel

    Good riddance

    Watching Microsoft immolate their mobile ambitions and tens of billions of dollars doing it warms my heart. There is a way forward without their empire, and people are finally leaving them behind. The Cambrian Explosion of choices now available speaks volumes about how limiting their tyranny was.

    The last five years have been a Great Leap both in technologies available and the percentage of Mankind having access to them. We can place the credit for that squarely on the engineers who, unchained from the Microsoft yoke, took flight in all directions.

    My, how beautifully they soar.

  15. herman

    The problem is that MS has a strong reputation for making operating systems that is slow and breaks easily, that absolutely no-one in his right mind would want a MS phone. It really is only corporate IT departments that insist on buying Windows based devices, since it guarantees their continued employment to maintain it.

    1. dogged

      Drivel. Among nerds you might get some support for this view but not much anywhere without a fanboy infestation. The public don't give a flat fuck what OS their runs as long it has all the apps and the why fies and the four gees and it looks shiny.

      Microsoft's problem has been mainly carrier exclusivity with idiot carriers - in the US, for example, AT&T pretty much castrate flagships by disabling wireless charging and halving the internal storage while Verizon insist on an entirely new CDMA model that they then don't market and drop after three months - and an absolute failure to incentivise sales drones as, for example, Samsung do. That incentivising (bribing, basically) is expensive but cheaper than blowing $8.2 billion on Nokia. It could have been done.

      Phone shops push consumers away from WP. Not because it sucks but because they don't get an extra few quid as a backhander for selling it. Since that's unlikely to change, it'll stay niche.

      1. Mikel

        Microsoft is a bad software badge

        Buggy, insecure, full of improbable quirks. Hugely bloated. A burden to learn, inconsistent and ever-changing user interfaces. Incompatible even with itself. Prone to data loss and corruption. Guaranteed to stop being even the barest level of functional as soon as they decide you need to pay them more money. Totally undocumented, completely opaque, bereft of any sort of user support. Without warranty of any kind, specifically contraindicated by Microsoft for any use that might actually be important.

        And it always has been.

        1. dogged

          Re: Microsoft is a bad software badge

          Aha, are we on the FUD train again?

          -Buggy? Yes. As buggy as Android? No.

          -Insecure? No. More secure than either iOS or Android if you count the number of active vulns (ie none) or hostorical all-time vulns (ie 1 SMS attack which affected WP7 only).

          -Hugely bloated? Compared to what? Android? The M8 uses identical hardware for WP and Android. The WP version a) doesn't lag which the Android does and b) gets roughly 20% more battery life from the same hardware. Identical hardware. So where did you find that one or did you just make it up?

          -Prone to data loss and corruption - I dunno, I've been using WP for three years now and never seen that happen, or heard of it. You made it up.

          Guaranteed etc - no, you're thinking of iOS.

          That last ones are just more invented bullshit. Honestly Mikel, you tell more lies than Bob Vistakin. You should really stop that.

      2. Richard Plinston

        > Phone shops push consumers away from WP. Not because it sucks but because they don't get an extra few quid as a backhander for selling it.

        You have that the wrong way around:

        """Part of the $200 million will apparently be used for retail staff, who are set to receive $10-15 for each handset sold, which should provide ample incentive for sales persons to recommend Windows Phones over iPhones and Android devices."""

        http://wmpoweruser.com/nokia-and-microsoft-to-spend-200-million-on-us-marketing-sales-incentives-of-10-15-per-phone/

        1. dogged

          @Richard Plinston - cherry picking again? Find a later post on the topic. It never actually happened.

          1. Richard Plinston

            @Richard Plinston - cherry picking again? Find a later post on the topic. It never actually happened.

            That is starting to sound like dogma. It certainly didn't work but given that people were employed to do this* and budget was set to pay for it, what _evidence_ do you have that it _never_ happened ?

            * http://wmpoweruser.com/job-posting-confirms-microsoft-sales-incentives-to-carrier-sales-staff/

    2. Aoyagi Aichou

      The original Windows Mobile was pretty good. I've used WM5.5 for years almost daily.

  16. bed

    My worthless opinion

    My worthless opinion

    This article discusses the (lack of) sales of Lumia phones and (again) the commentards have degenerated into a Windows Operating Systems slagging off session – hardly informative or constructive. The most useful comment has been that that the end users generally do not care what operating system is being used providing they can do what they want to do – make phone calls, e-mail, web browsing, photos, music or whatever. And this is my experience too when I provide end-user support for the family and others, who all (bar one son-in-law who likes his iThingies) have Nokia Windows phones of various sorts. As we migrate to Windows 10 on our PCs it is interesting to see that there is some sense in having tiles on the desktop and on the phone – it may yet make for a consistent environment. Yes, I know, it can be frustrating for those who like to open multiple applications in multiple windows on multiple monitors but Start10 or Classicshell is available. So, in the long run, if Microsoft persevere, there may be future for Windows phone. And it actually isn’t that bad an operating system, certainly less confusing for the average end user than some Android offerings I have had to deal with.

    1. Aoyagi Aichou

      Re: My worthless opinion

      My mother was crushed when she learned WP8 can't have Pou.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does Nadella believe he can crush a whole division and then sell something?

    "Hey, you Nokia Lumia people, you're fired, all 7,800 of you!"

    "Hey, Nokia Lumia is a 7.6bn write off!!"

    "Hey, do you want to buy a Lumia?"

    I'm surprised Nadella is still regarded someone who can change things. It looks to me he's taking his petty revenges inside MS, and really doesn't know where to lead Microsoft, and he's attempting to desperately find ways to look smart following bad advices, just, just, he isn't smart enough to undestand it

    BTW: Nokia upgraded my 620 to each WP 8.1 release, Microsoft didn't upgrade it to the last one. Guess I won't upgrade it to WP10 because WP8.1 looks still a better designed OS for a phone.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Clearly, Nadella's line of expertise is limited to giving away free products.

  19. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    What is this about?

    But the revenue figure is uncontested, and real revenue is what counts.

    Not really. Income is what really matters. Lots of the phone makers can waive impressive revenue numbers around but few have any profits worth speaking of.

    I haven't viewed the numbers but it looks to me like the beginning of the end of WP: going nowhere in the high-end, withdrawing from the low-end and the licensing deal seems as popular as leprosy.

    The update cycle is a farce. It's like the worst combination of Android an IOS: you can only get updates from MS but they come once in a blue moon and, by Mr Orlowski's account, seem to be following the ITunes development strategy of adding crap and removing useful bits.

    There are lots of things to admire in Windows Phone and the devices are generally very impressive builds for their price (I'm a sucker for OLED which rarely comes so cheap) but Office and Cortana on Android an IOS may already be making more real moolah for MS than WP ever will.

    And whether you like MS or not, we should all recognise that they didn't get where they did with marketing alone: they have some great technology and some good tools. It would be nice to see them entering new markets with them.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, let's recap on Nadella's successes:

    1. Made plenty of people redundant.

    2. Lost the console battle to Sony.

    3. Made the Nokia brand an anachronism.

    4. Issued statements where he never uses one word when ten will do.

    5. Presided over selling the latest version of Windows for £0.

    6. Just about killed Skype off.

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