Nokia posts $1 billion operating loss, considers patents sale

Nokia today announced a $1.7 billion operating loss on $9.23 billion revenue for the three month period from April through June of 2012. The company managed to sell 4 million units of its Lumia devices, but overall Nokia's smartphone sales were down 14% compared to 2011. Feature phone sales, increased 4% from last year and the first quarter, adding up to 73 million feature phones sold.

While acknowledging it has been a difficult transition, and that Q3 will remain a difficult quarter, Nokia said that its Lumia lineup surpassed expectations in the United States.

That did not stop them from slashing the price of their Lumia 900 flagship by half to just $50 after three months in stores, however. Many saw this as a response to news that the phone will not be able to update to the next major version of Windows Phone, but Nokia called it “a normal strategy that is put in place during the life cycle of most phones.”

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop commented on the results:

"Nokia is taking action to manage through this transition period. While Q2 was a difficult quarter, Nokia employees are demonstrating their determination to strengthen our competitiveness, improve our operating model and carefully manage our financial resources.

We shipped four million Lumia Smartphones in Q2, and we plan to provide updates to current Lumia products over time, well beyond the launch of Windows Phone 8. We believe the Windows Phone 8 launch will be an important catalyst for Lumia. During the quarter, we demonstrated stability in our feature phone business, and enhanced our competitiveness with the introduction of our first full touch Asha devices."

The Finnish company held the spot as the world’s leading mobile phone maker for fourteen straight years but was overtaken by Samsung earlier in 2012, according to research firm Gartner.

The Wall Street Journal has put together an interesting report that delves into the history of Nokia and the bureaucratic nightmare inside the company that led to many bad calls over the last decade.