Lumia Loses Luster Despite AT&T Marketing Push
The Lumia 900 was supposedly backed up with AT&T's "biggest marketing push" ever, but it appears that wasn't enough to help the already low-priced handset. A carrier spokesman says that AT&T continues to be pleased with sales of the Lumia and that handset promotions are a routine practice. (See AT&T's Nokia Lumia Drops LTE to $100, What the Nokia Lumia Really Costs and Nokia Fires Cheap Shot at Apple.)
But, it seems to me that Nokia's first flagship handset didn't live up to expectations. AT&T has also said it will be a big proponent of the Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) operating system in general, so I'm wondering now if the carrier will pull out bigger guns for Windows 8 (which the Lumia 900 will never see).
Of course, dropping the Lumia's price could to help drive sales, but my guess is, if you weren't interested before, another $50 off won't seal the deal for you. It's a great device, but it's still missing apps and brand awareness and is crippled by the fact that it will never get the latest and greatest OS Microsoft has to offer.
All of this just puts more pressure on Windows 8 and, especially, on Nokia. All of the wireless operators have said they want to support a third ecosystem -- and I believe that marketing and promotion from them will help to create it -- but both sides have to live up to their end of the bargain. (See Don't Count Nokia Out Just Yet and Nokia Counts on AT&T for a US Comeback .)
Nokia's Windows 8 devices had better impress when they launch this year, and the wireless operators should give equal -- if not preferential treatment -- to them. Otherwise, this won't be the last price cuts we see.
— Sarah Reedy, Senior Reporter, Light Reading Mobile
It doesn’t matter what the carriers do, the consumers have spoken. The carriers have listened, Microsoft has not. The majority of the consumers do not like or want WP; the sales have shown that.
In Q4 2011, MeeGo outsold all of WP handsets from all manufacturers, not just Nokia. You have an OS that Nokia killed and tried their best to hide it and yet it outsold WP7. Bada also outsold WP7 from all manufacturers. WP was on the market for a year and MeeGo was a newcomer and did better. The writing is quite clear, WP is not what the consumer wants.
Q1 2011 WP/WM shipped 2.6 million units and held a market share of 2.6%.
Q1 2012 WP/WM shipped 3.3 million units and held a market share of 3.3%.
Just for grins, how about Symbian.
Q1 2011 Symbian saw 26.4 million units and held a market share of 26%.
Q1 2012 Symbian saw 10.4 million units and held a market share of 6.8%.
So, Symbian, MeeGo and Bada all did better than WP did. Don’t forget that it includes WM in there as well.
Q3 2011 saw 2 million WP7 shipped. Q4 2011 saw 2.7 million shipped. Q2 2011 was around 2 million shipped.
For Q2 2012, the predictions are 2.85 million, so a drop from Q1 2012.
Nielson back that there was a decline in Q2 for 2012. They say WP had a 1.3% market share for Q2 compared to 1.7% for Q1. WM was at 3% during that period. When their existing customer base is refusing to transition, that is the first sign on failure. The second, when was the last time WM saw an update? 2 years ago and that was just a bug fix release with the initial release being the prior year.