Nokia Lumia 920 sales strong: A threat to iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3

December 2, 2012 | Filed under: Business | Posted by:

Reports have started coming that Nokia Lumia 920 sales are going strong and it may become a threat to Apple’s iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3, two top selling handsets in the market

There has been widespread reports in the media that Lumia 920 were selling so strongly that the devices had sold out. As early as Nov 20, The Next Web was reporting that the device was all but sold out on AT&T and Amazon. Amazon for example had the device backordered for two weeks. On the AT&T site, which is the only carrier that is releasing the Lumia 920 in the US, all devices were sold out except for the white Lumias.

Previously, the device had quickly sold out in UK and Germany. Then reports came in that even in Italy that device was in short supply. One report from Yahoo China said that 2.5 million lumia 920s had already been ordered. Then later during the Black Friday sales it was reported that not only had the device sold out on the previously mentioned stores Amazon and AT&T, but even on Best Buy which seemed to have been bucking the trend with well stocked Lumia 920 roster.

Clearly the device was doing well, even if reports that Nokia had shipped only a limited number of the devices to the US were true. What is significant however is that like the launch of Lumia 900, Nokia has not been able to maintain supply to meet demand.

Even if we believe that Nokia wanted to focus on the European market more than the US market because its devices had traditionally done well there, it does not explain why they ran out so quickly in Germany, UK and Italy, three of the top European markets. However much the Nokia Lumia 920 might have shipped, we can be sure that it is far from the iPhone and GS3 numbers.

Also, given that there was a similar ‘sold out’ brouhaha around the Lumia 900, which did not even break the 1 million mark when Nokia first reported sales numbers, journalists this time around are taking the news of sell out with a dose of skepticism. While it is good news that the devices were sold out on Black Friday, it also means that Nokia would have missed sales it would have otherwise got had it been stocked.

All this has had a positive effect on Nokia stocks which has rallied 30% on the news of strong demand for the phones. Nokia has not provided specific numbers yet and it had only a boilerplate statement for the New York Times when reporter Brian X Chen asked if the supply numbers were kept low on purpose. “You can be very sure that we are working hard to meet the demand,” spokesperson Doug Dawson said.

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Posted by on December 2, 2012. Filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
  • Radhakrishna

    Due to fear, Nokia produces so low Lumias! Very funny !!

    Further, even if it is a success selling around 2.5 million a month, calculate its market share: at-least 50 million Android phones and 8 million iPhones in a month;

    The market share comes to hardly 4%, thus no improvement really.

  • Rajesh Khanna

    How can a hardware company (Nokia) with only one OS can compete with others producing variety of phones with all popular OS ? Dirty Microsoft has turned Nokia into its WP manufacturing arm through virus Elop.

    If Nokia can simply produce Android phones also, then its stock would rise to $40. Millions and millions of customers are waiting for Nokia Android phones. Anyway, as Microsoft does not allow Nokia to do so, Samsung continues to gain without doubt.

    Further, as Nokia is giving away Lumia 920 at throw-away phones, it is really making loss for each Lumia sold. The technique is to increase WP market share at Nokia’s cost. Thus, Microsoft and Elop are simply looting Nokia like anything.

  • Matt Murdock

    Ok i’m confused the Lumia 920′s on ATT site has a expected shipping time of 7-14 days for all models and this is proof of limited supply? If that’s the case apple must of really blew it with the iphone 5 because customers were giving a 21 day expectation.

    Research shows that apple was having a hard time keeping up with demand until the time the lumia 920 went on sale. Look to back order threads on At&t site and match up the dates when the iphone became abundant in supply. conclusion the iphone is getting some of its lunch eaten.

  • VZ

    Android sells 50 million phones, well that is Samsung, Motorola, LG and other cell phone companies. Andriod is not a cell phone company. How much does each cell phone company sell. Nokia doesn’t have to be the best seller. Only one company can be the best seller. Samsung and Apple took many years to get were they are now. It took another cell phone company 14 years to sell more than Nokia. Most cell phones have Nokia technology in it. Apple pays royalities to Nokia and Blackberry will too soon.

  • novreis

    VZ is right! Nokia has a strategy and the signs are very positive. They are positioning now at the top of the market (Lumia 920 is considered the best smartphone now for a lot of people, some of them iphone and android users), and once the fresh wp8 OS is adopted they can go for the lower market as miilions of android phones. Iphone owners at the most of countries (like mine), have them because it shows Status. Android is another story. When I went to buy the lumia 610 to my daugther, the seller (very young guy) was not recommending it, and insisted in an android model. I read that in US, there are also stores behave the same way. Nokia, in spite the quality of wp devices, must overcome these two issues by a correct marketing campaign.