This morning, Nokia announced their Q4 2011 earnings, with a net sales of roughly 13.1 billion. That’s a decrease of 21% from the same period in 2010. In the release, the company stated they had sold “well over 1 million Lumia devices”. At face value, that appears to be a good number, but how many of those phones are sitting on carrier shelves? Those numbers don’t appear to reflect consumer sales. Using Facebook for Windows Phone as an indicator, it shows 1,100,000 monthly active users. That number would be significantly larger if Nokia’s Lumia devices sold were to consumers.
Ultimately, this is a transition quarter. In the US market, there were a total of zero Lumia handsets in 2011. That’s certainly changed with the launch of the Nokia Lumia 710 on T-Mobile and the eventual release of the Nokia Lumia 900, which could see a release on March 18th. Couple this with what we believe will be a strong showing at Mobile World Congress next month.
“Facebook app users on Windows Phone”
Let’s start by qualifying a user as being those who’ve actually downloaded and installed the Facebook application or as those who use the already integrated functions of their messaging, people and photos hubs? If it’s the latter in a majority, my strong preference, than you can’t use that number you’ve quoted as a justified sample size. I’ve found one purpose for the actual Facebook app and that is checking notifications. All else can be done in OS hubs. Let’s not let the “app” be an indicator of how many users of Facebook own a WP7.
I’d agree with you that’s it’s not an ideal indicator. However, I don’t believe the Nokia numbers announced today don’t appear to actual sell-through numbers.