As the mobile phone giant Nokia gets ready to release its official quarterly financial results, which will include the number of Nokia Lumia handsets that were shipped, a panel of analysts has revealed predictions relating to the number of shipments of the handset to carriers and retailers over the course of 2011.A study was carried out by Bloomberg, which involved polling twenty two analysts with their predictions of how many Nokia Lumia handsets were shipped to retailers and carriers last year. The analysts predicted between 800,000 and 2 million handsets were shipped, with the average figure coming to 1.3 million. It is thought that the figures will show that there is potential with regards to the Nokia/Microsoft venture, although the shipments do not relate to actual sales figures.
One industry expert stated: “The numbers look promising. If Nokia is able to have a strong launch and surpass at least 1 million and keep that type of momentum, this would help put them in a credible position that is crucial to winning back investors.”
Another analyst added: “There weren’t a lot of the hero handsets out there — HTC were struggling, RIM didn’t have a show-me device, Sony Ericsson and Motorola weren’t really stepping into the mix, so there was probably enough space for Nokia to be able to point to fourth- quarter numbers they were happy with.”
