Nokia Smartphone Sales Up, But Symbian^3 Delayed; MeeGo Device Due This Year
Nokia have announced their financial results for the last quarter, and the Finnish company reported a quarterly decline in both cellphone and smartphone sales though an increase in comparison to the same period a year ago. Overall 107.8m handsets – 21.5m of which were smartphones – were sold in the three month period, up from 93.2-percent in Q1 2009, but down from 126.9-percent in Q4 2009. Meanwhile, Nokia have confirmed that they will be delaying the release of Symbian^3 handsets until Q3 2010, with the first announcement expected sometime in the first half of this year.
"Nokia is planning to deliver a family of smartphones based on the Symbian^3 software platform that is targeted to offer a clearly improved user experience, a high standard of quality, and competitive value to consumers. We plan to launch the first smartphone based on Symbian^3 during the second quarter 2010, with shipments expected during the third quarter 2010." Nokia financial report
That delay has had a knock-on effect with Symbian^4's release, which is now not expected until sometime in 2011. Meanwhile Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo has confirmed that the company's first MeeGo device – running the OS based on Nokia's Maemo platform and Intel's Moblin – is due for release later on this year.
When they do arrive, the smartphones will likely be cheaper than their predecessors too; Nokia report the average selling price for a smartphone in the past quarter was €155 ($207), down from €186 ($248) the previous quarter and from €190 ($253) in Q1 2009. Sales of devices with touchscreens or QWERTY keyboards were up 300-percent from Q1 2009, to 18m devices.
As for software, while it may lack the headline-grabbing allure of Apple's App Store, the Nokia Ovi Store is apparently seeing 1.7m downloads per day. Making Ovi Maps Navigation a free download has obviously helped that; Nokia have seen 10m downloads of the PND app since. Nonetheless, Nokia shares are down this morning, as the market reacts primarily to the Symbian delay.