Who Wants Numbers? Lumia on T-Mobile? Lumia 800 vs Lumia 710? How Many Nokia N9?

So who wants deeper info on Nokia numbers? Its time to do some mathematical modelling again. I like my numbers, they are my buddies. And I don't like it that the big smartphone makers are becoming ever more secretive about their product lines and shipment numbers. But when there are some tidbits of data, and some good analysis, we can get pretty close to the truth. Like I did three months ago with the regional split and other data about the Nokia smartphone sales.

So? Want to know how many Lumia smartphones by Nokia did T-Mobile USA sell? I think we know now. What about the split of Lumia 800 vs Lumia 710? That too. I think we can rather accurately also tell where the Lumia sales happened by Nokia's reporting regions.. And with a bit more digging, some interesting comparisons to Symbian and ... yes, with some assumptions, even MeeGo based N9 sales.

The key bit of data we got, was that the ASP for the Lumia series is 220 Euros (286 US dollars). And we know from Nokia Q1 results the regional sales of total Nokia handsets at 600,000 units, which generated 93 million Euros. We could do a simple equation to solve the price and shipment number for non-Lumia price phones, but actually, that would not be accurate. Because the ASP of 220 Euros is for the Lumia series, ie Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 as they were sold during Q1. And T-Mobile USA only sold the cheaper Lumia 710 model. How to calculate that ASP?

Haha, thats easy. Lets go to a country with no handset subsidies, in the Eurozone, and take the launch prices for both phones. Then use that price ratio, as the ASP's for both the Lumia 710 and Lumia 800. Obviously one needs to be below and one above the 220 Euro price, right? But these will tend to have teh same 'mark up' so their retail price and their wholesale price should be in the same proportion, as the two phones were launched essentially at the same time to the European markets. Haha, a little bit of math and voila! We have the ASP split:

NOKIA LUMIA ASP BY MODEL
Lumia 710 ASP . . . . 172 Euros (224 US dollars)
Lumia 800 ASP . . . . 268 Euros (348 US dollars)
Lumia series ASP . . 220 Euros (286 US dollars) 
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimate from company data, April 2012
This info may be freely shared

Now, when we take the Lumia 710 ASP, and the 93 million Euro total handset revenues earned by Nokia out of the USA, we can easily calculate that Nokia sold 290,000 Lumia 710 smartphones on T-Mobile USA. That leaves 310,000 other Nokia phones left, that generated sales revenues of 43 million Euros. That means we also know, they were clearly smartphones, not dumbphones, because their average price is 140 Euros, slightly above the 43 million that was generated out of the various carriers/operators in the USA selling non-Lumia phones. And as there was no N9 sold in the USA, we know those 310,000 Nokia non-Lumia smartphones were therefore.. Symbian smartphones.

Interesting, isn't it. That even after Elop killed Symbian sales in the USA, and then waited to launch Lumia, now in the first quarter of Lumia sales in the USA, Nokia's 'burning platforms obsolete' Symbian still outsold the Lumia in the USA. 310,000 to 290,000. Interesting.. (This won't last. This current Q2 Nokia will definitely sell far more Lumia in the USA than any last lingering Symbian sales).

Now we have a useful data point. The Lumia USA sales were 290,000. Out of total 2 million Lumia sales in Q1, that means we have 1.71 million more to distribute to Europe and Asia. And those Lumias were on both models, on Lumia 800 and Lumia 710. Did you want to know how those products were split? We can now calculate that. (Remember, I am now adding back the Lumia 710 units also from the USA)

NOKIA LUMIA MODEL SPLIT Q1
Lumia 800 sales Q1 . . . . . 1.24 million
Lumia 710 sales Q1 . . . . . .  760,000 
Total Lumia in Q1 . . . . . . . 2.0 million
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimate from company data, April 2012
This info may be freely shared

Isn't this fun? And now, how about that regional split. For that, I had to do some multidimensional modelling, to get all the numbers to work out across Lumia, non-Lumia smartphone, and dumbphone unit sales, and revenues, to each region and still with the correct totals. As we now have the ASP, I then went back to Q4 data, to calculate also the Q4 regional numbers. I get this split of Lumia region split:

LUMIA SALES BY REGION . . Q1 2012 . . . . . Q4 2011
Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,600,000 . . . .  550,000
APAC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100,000 . . . . .  50,000
North America . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290,000
TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000,000 . . . . . 600,000
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimate from company data, April 2012
This info may be freely shared

Now, what of MeeGo and the N9? I don't have any data point to get a firm grip, not on the unit sales, not on the ASP, and not on the revenues. But first, we have seen that Elop hates MeeGo and has been going out of his way to discredit that OS and the related phones. Several of his Nokia chiefs for the MeeGo project have resigned in protest. So, we can be pretty sure, that still in Q1, MeeGo has outsold Lumia. The math was pretty easy to calculate out of the Q4 results, the estimate of between 1.5 million and 2 million MeeGo sales for Q4, and my official estimate is, as regular readers know, the mid-point of that, at 1.75 million. I find it funny, that now Nokia did not provide that guidance about Symbian sales to help calculate out the MeeGo sales haha. But yes, I think its a relatively safe bet, that MeeGo still outsold Lumia, else Elop would have been all over the press celebrating how his darling Windows Phone is crushing Nokia's own MeeGo. Lets be very conservative about this, lets call it at just over the Lumia level, at 2.2 million. It would only be 26% growth from the previous Quarter, whereas Lumia sales more than tripled. Bear in mind, the N9 is highly rated and endorsed, while Lumia is receiving at best 'mixed results' and has the highest return rates ever seen by a Nokia phone. So if Lumia was growing, its pretty safe to assume also N9 grew, at least a bit. And lets keep again these estimates very conservative.

Then we need an ASP. I used the same method as with the Lumia, using Eurozone prices from markets with no subsidies, and I get the ASP of 331 Euros (430 US dollars) for the N9. Now we have enough data to populate a really complex multidimensional optimization model, which yields our Lumia, N9, Symbian and dumbphone sales by units sold and total revenues per Nokia reporting region. Out of that, I get these splits for the N9 sales (again, I went back to calculate the same data also for Q4, using the 1.75 million sales level)

NOKIA N9 UNIT SALES . . Q1 2012 . . . . Q4 2011
Europe N9 sales  . . . . . . . 900,000 . . . .  700,000 
MEA N9 sales . . . . . . . . . 100,000 . . . . .  50,000
China N9 sales  . . . . . . . . 800,000 . . . . . 800,000
APAC N9 sales . . . . . . . . 100,000 . . . . . 100.000
LatAm N9 sales . . . . . . . . 300,000 . . . . . 100.000
TOTAL N9 SALES . . . . . 2,200,000 . . .  1,750,000
Source: TomiAhonen Consulting Estimate from company data, April 2012
This info may be freely shared

Thats what I found for you.. I think the Symbian and dumbphone sales are really not that exciting anymore, both falling severely in every market haha.. But these are really rare hard-to-find numbers and I'm confident these are accurate to about plus/minus 5% for the Lumia numbers and about plus/minus 10% for these N9 MeeGo numbers.

Then a few notes on the near future. I was pretty darn accurate calling Q1 sales for Lumia at 2 million when I did this type of analysis three months ago. Now, for Q2, I think we see the Lumia sequential growth continue in Europe and the T-Mobile sales will also grow. Asia Pacific does not seem to have much of any traction for Lumia. Then we add the AT&T sales of the Lumia 900 with the 'zero dollar' price with the refund offer. I think 1 million AT&T sales would be reasonable. The rest of the world would be trivial on top of that. I think the rough number would be about 4 million Lumia sales for Q2. Remember this is totally pathetic for Nokia, who on their previous new platform launch, with Symbian S^3 and the N8 flagship, did 4 million in the first Quarter. Now when the market has grown to 60% bigger, and with the biggest marketing push ever seen by Nokia, they take three Quarters to reach 4 million? Thats lame.

As to the N9 and MeeGo, unless the management wises up really fast, that will be it. N9 could be a world-winner but if they wait until Samsung Galaxy 3 and iPhone 5 are out, the N9 will no longer be the hot phone. The time is running out for Nokia's MeeGo Miracle. But it bugs me, when the evidence clearly suggests it is even outselling the Lumia series still 2 quarters from the launch of both, where Nokia CEO has given the N9 no support, and it is expelled to the remote corners of the planet.

UPDATE May 1 - I have now updated my forecast for Nokia smartphone market share development (was 29% a year ago, crashed to 8% now. I say will fall to 3% by year end. And before you say Tomi is totally nuts, remember my forecasts for Nokia end of 2011 and Nokia now Q1 were the most accurate in the industry, actually by a wide margin too. Read the new projection for this year 2012 and also revenues, average prices profit/loss and the Windows Phone OS ecosystem market projections at Nokia Market Share Projection to End of 2012.

And for those who may want to know 'all the numbers' about the handset industry, consider the TomiAhonen Phone Book. If you buy the 2010 edition, you will get the 2012 edition also, for no extra charge, when it is released later this year. Or if you want the stats and numbers on the overall mobile industry, check out the TomiAhonen Almanac 2012.

Comments

[vladkr]

The N9 is quite an interesting case as there was an unofficial logistics to deliver to countries where it wasn't supposed to be released:

I got my N9 from a US based store, which got its N9 from Australia (or New Zealand)

Many French got their N9 (especially the fabulous white ones) from Verkkokauppa in Finland or from Switzerland, before some French reseller decided to sell it (and they sold it quite well) directly.

I also noticed that Lumia 800 disappeared from ATT website few weeks ago (maybe sooner, I don't know as I don't check it regularly) - I'm just sure it was way before the 900 was released.

[Alex Kerr]

Interesting data, thanks Tomi.

N9 just won a major design award: http://mynokiablog.com/2012/04/25/nokia-n9-wins-design-and-art-direction-award-coveted-yellow-pencil-for-interactive-design/

808 Pureview has just won the TIPA award for best imaging ‘the most coveted photo and imaging awards worldwide’: http://mynokiablog.com/2012/04/24/nokia-808-pureview-wins-tipa-best-innovation-award-revolution-in-mobile-imaging/

Nokia's best work is VERY clearly on MeeGo (/Harmattan) and on Symbian. Still.

Nokia will now sideline their best work and continue to bloody mindedly push their less-than-best-work, Lumia, no matter what. Possibly to corporate destruction.

Outgoing Chairman says it's all going to be fine and success in the next few years. http://mynokiablog.com/2012/04/25/jorma-ollila-nokia-to-turn-things-around-at-the-end-of-the-year-success-in-the-next-few-years/
Strange, Nokia DID have success for many years until the last year or so, and could have enjoyed much greater success in the last year. So Elop will not be fired anytime soon and Nokia will continue it's path.

Everything they have done has been in support of Microsoft, and not Nokia. It is very clear to see. The board supports everything.

One has to ask, who exactly is pulling the strings, and why has action not been taken against them to save Nokia, save investors, and provide consumers with the best products?

[ejvictor]

http://www.dandad.org/awards/professional/2012/categories/prod/product-design/04255/nokia-n9

Great job N9 Team - beat iPad2 and Nokia Lumia 800 (Read here beat iOS and WP 7.5) for another feather in the cap!!!!

It bothers me that Nokia find the all eggs in one basket (WP) strategy acceptable in this day and age.

[Manu]

That Lumia region wise sales number gives a fair idea where Nokia has been losing. Traditionally, APAC has been strong centre for Nokia smartphone sales, but as you pointed out correctly, I've not seen good traction for Lumia in my country (India) despite very strong marketing campaign.
As for N9, I find those numbers pretty hard to digest, especially considering :
1) It hasn't been released in any major countries. Only in minuscule markets for the sake of availability.
2) There's apparently no market push for Meego/N9/Harmattan.
3) The ecosystem around it is no say in comparison to iOS & Android. Though, you'll argue Qt is better.
4) It hasn't got any specific push from Network Providers either which you stress is very important from market share point of view.

Apart from above apparent points, heres a quick point in hindsight :
- Nokia has already out-sourced production facilities. There has been layoffs in European production facilities. Than, there are reports that European production facilities have been idling. Nokia has maintained since Q1 - That they are selling every Lumia phone they can manufacture. Even today, there are reports that N900 UK release has been delayed due to strong AT&T demand.
I wonder how are they able to ramp up production for N9 in north of 2 million units in Q1 considering the cynical attitude of Elop towards Harmattan/N9.

[jiipee]

It is hard for me to believe in the 2,2 mio figure. Should N9/Meego be visible in the Statcounter stats at least close to level of WP (which is in itself a rounding error by some analysts).

After reading through Nokias Q1 report and noticing that N9 is not really mentioned at all (in 2011 report it was always mentioned before Lumia), two options come into my mind:
- The sales figures is a lot lower than in Q1 and is not worth mentioning because they just need to report the true and fair view OR
- The sales figures are on the same level as Q4, again, because of the need to give true and fair view. If the demand for N9 had crashed in Q1 that should be significant enough to be mentioned! After all 2 million phones with ASP of ~300 EUR means significant amount of cash in comparison to their bottom line.

[KPOM]

I doubt that the 310,000 Symbian sales in the US is meaningful. They are mostly throwaway phones sold through Straight Talk at Walmart to run on T-Mobile, or cheap phones sold to prepaid customers. Nokia hasn't been taken seriously by the US carriers for over a decade, so the Lumia 900 launch is actually a great success by Nokia standards over here. AT&T supposedly sold out of them.

[st7761]

Compal Communications to see strong smartphone shipments to Nokia in 2Q12
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120424PD201.html

[Jack]

Nokia has been selling a Lumia 800 bundle unlocked in Microsoft Stores since February 14. The price? $999; explaining the higher ASP.

Since release, the 710 has charted in T-Mo USA's Top 3 best selling phones with a service agreement.

There is no way Symbian phones have outsold these two phones.

[elm70]

2.2M of Nokia N9 in Q1 , growing from 1.7B from Q4

Tomi , be serous ... you are joking ;-)

I think Nokia is not even able to produce so many N9. I think they are producing no more then 100k N9 per month
Also this will imply that Nokia sold only 8M of cheap Symbian ... again hard to believe.

Tchuss

e_lm_70

[ejvictor]

Tomi’s strategy can be Turbo charged!!!

One of the issues around MeeGo and its “shelving” was Intel’s delay in delivering the new hardware…. Guess what Medfield is here!!! I remember that one of the MeeGo Devs had words with Elop around how easy it was to move MeeGo to a new hardware architecture. Now Just Imagine N9 (N10) on Medfield hardware running Alien Dalvik and QT – DONE!

[Timo Koola]

How about Canada (apart from blaming them for Bryan Adams)? Is that not part of the NAM figures. AFAIK, Canada did get both Lumias during Q1.

[Stephens_Eloped]

No matter what the figures, the stats and the opinions, it will always baffle me as to why Nokia stopped development and further devices running MeeGo. The N9 is a clear winner (in more than one sense) and it makes ZERO sense to me that a manufacturer could create such an amazing and popular product that they then just simply refuse to sell properly, and then cut off its development. Nokia ran OSes concurrently in the past (S30, S40, S60, Symbian^3 and Maemo) so why can't they continue with that plan (S30, S40, Symbian^3, MeeGo and Windows Phone). Well we can all guess. My guess is that Elop and Ballmer came to an agreement whereby Ballmer said that Microsoft would only enter into this agreement if they made WP the ONLY smartphone strategy, thus killing S^3 and MeeGo in one fell swoop. I can't believe the board took this lightly. It just seems to make no sense. But then again, it's not nonsense, it was planned. Elop wants WP to succeed, and therefore other 'rivals' need to go. Easy to get rid of things you already control. My N9 won't get replaced by anything for a long, long time. It's the last piece of Nokia hardware AND software I can be proud to carry around. Thank God it got released while this sh1t was going on last year.

[KPOM]

If you want to get a sense of the types of Symbian phones still on sale in the US, go to www.straightalk.com. You'll see a reconditioned Nokia E71 for $49.99, a reconditioned Nokia 6790 for $49.99, and a Nokia E5 for $149.99. Mind you, these are unsubsidized prices, as Straight Talk is all prepaid. The people buying them are looking for cheap talk-and-text phones and probably don't realize and couldn't care less that they have "smartphones." (They have some Android 2.3 and even 2.2 devices for the people who might actually want them).

I've also read on various mobile enthusiast message boards that the Nokias are a good buy on Straight Talk because they are GSM (their Androids are mostly CDMA), and can be used to activate a prepaid plan on an MVNO that roams on AT&T for their iPhones or Android phones. The thing to remember is that Nokia had a reputation in the US for being a purveyor of cheap phones. They tried selling the N95, E51, 5800 and N97 in a few "flagship stores" a few years ago (I bought several phones there, myself), but most people weren't interested in paying full price for a phone, let alone one running an OS they never heard of.

AT&T and Verizon seem willing to prop up Windows Phone to give them some leverage (they hope) against Apple and Samsung. Those iPhone and Galaxy subsidies are hitting their bottom line. Verizon and AT&T actually "beat the street" by selling fewer iPhones than expected. Perhaps Nokia would have been better off switching to Android (they might have kept Samsung in check had they done so), but they made their decision to go with Windows Phone, and the two largest carriers realize that there's no one else left besides Nokia and Windows Phone to try to create some competition. Motorola Mobility is primarily an IP treasure trove for Google, and LG and HTC have largely fallen by the wayside. People who seek out an Android (rather than just "settle" for one because their carrier doesn't carry the iPhone) buy Samsung Galaxy phones. Now that iPhone is on 3 main carriers and even a lot of small carriers, fewer and fewer people have to "settle" for something else. WP at least gives them something different to advertise.

[vladkr]

@Timo Koola:

If it's hard to get figures from US operators, I can imagine that it's even harder to get them from Telus and Rogers.

Lumia 800: arrived with some delay, on March - I don't know why - on Telus network at $100 (with 3 years contract), but was lowered to $50 after just one month.

Lumia 710: was released in Canada about at the same time as in the US. Don't have precise figures, but I know that in Quebec city it's low, VERY low...

Sellers are usually reluctant to give their figures, but I know that the main Rogers reseller in Quebec city had sold only one 710, 10 days after its release.
Price was cut at half too

Lumia 900: pre-sales were very difficult to find on Rogers website; the only way to find it was to google it. BTW it was a special Black Knight edition.

It was then released just two days after the US (Rogers never releases anything on holidays/WE).
I haven't noticed any excitement about this model in all the QC province, even in Montreal (no hysteria as in Paris or London)

Maybe ejvictor or anyone else from Canada has made different observation; Maybe it's successful in Toronto Metro area, or in Newfoundland... I don't know.

[P]

@e_lm_70

The price for N9 in Sweden is now about $400 (ink 25% vat), I have bought two. The price was lowered in February I think and then it did rise in sale statistics.

[Eurofan]

Tomi: Thanks for crunching out these numbers. Your estimates are better than no information whatsoever and Nokia has clearly put an embargo on specific information about both N9 and Lumia sales. Makes me think too that N9 sells better than Nokia would like to admit and Lumia doesn't sell as well as they expected. Return figures would be very interesting to see for each line, too. I'm just making suggestions for the Nokia Board if they felt like doing their job and getting some more specific information from management on how Nokia's strategic transformation is coming along.

I don't think Nokia will sell 4 million Lumia's in Q2. I think Nokia will be lucky to sell 2 million again. Their best chances for Lumia sales were in North America and Western Europe and already those markets have spoken by their indifference. Anyone who was actually waiting for IE and Zune on their phone bought a Lumia in Q4 or Q1 in Europe and America. Q2 will be word of mouth sales and sales in regions even less hospitable to Microsoft. Those sales aren't going to happen.

@ejvictor: Thanks for keeping us posted on Intel and their Medfield program.

[So Vatar]

Tomi, I can follow your math re Lumia sales, but I cannot see that your Q1 N9 numbers are substantiated by any math.
There is a way to zero in on Q4 sales numbers for N9, I came up with about 1.2 Mio devices (well below your estimate). I do not see any numbers released (yet) from where one can deduct Q1 sales of N9. That Elop does not talk about it tells nothing, only that N9 is irrelevant in his mind (which is wrong on several levels, but anything non WP is not relevant to him regarding Smart Phones).

I'd appreciate if you could show numbers why you think N9 sold over 2.2 Mio devices in Q1. I do not believe we can be "pretty sure" that N9 outsold Lumias in Q1. I just don not see any substantiating number for this assumption.

To add a story: I am in the market to replace my N900. I will not consider any Nokia product as long as Elop is on the helm. I looked at many devices and the 64GB N9 is the device that would fit my needs best. Still, it will be an Android pretty soon for me. Not that a single person makes a difference, but I assume a few more people that used to like Nokia devices act in a similar way too. And that might add up.

[J. Aho]

Good news for Mr Elops, he can resend the memo he sent about the burning platform and now he wouldn't be telling lies.

[vladkr]

@Prakriti:
Elop comes from one of the most reputed universities in Canada, that opens doors.

As for Boston Chicken as an example... I'm not sure it's a good point as the company increased its debt while he was CIO, before finally filing for bankruptcy.

He also left a bitter taste at Juniper and ruined Macromedia in 2005...

Why no one asks Finnish government to intervene to save Nokia?

Because Finland is a democracy, unlike Canada, which only used to be
-> Government illegal intervention to break Air Canada Canada-Post strikes are not exactly a good example of democracy...
neither is the fact of obtaining adopting thanks to Canada's PM, knowing all difficulties a Polish mom had to get compensations/apologies after RCMP killed her son.
In such cases, countries like Russia, Italy, Spain... are fingered, in Canada apparently it's normal.

So no doubt Elop is brilliant on working on his own wealth and his own interests. In ruling companies, he's just a piece of junk.

Just for fun:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/09/the-five-worst-ceos-in-tech.php

http://www.siliconbeat.com/2008/01/11/microsoft-beware-stephen-elop-is-a-flight-risk/

[Louis]

A pink Lumia for girls has been announced, showing that Elop understands segmentation.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2973815/lumia-900-magenta-nokia-finland-release-date-rumor