Nokia ships 1.3 million Nokia Lumia units in 2011 according to average analyst estimate

With Nokia about to report its latest quarterly results on Thursday, Bloomberg polled 22 analysts on their expectation of how many Nokia Lumia units Nokia shipped in the last quarter. On average, the analysts see the Finnish based firm shipping 1.3 million units of the Windows Phone powered phones during the three month period. That also represents the number of Lumia phones shipped for 2011. At the moment, three Lumia models have been introduced with two of them, the entry-level Nokia Lumia 710 and the mid-range Nokia Lumia 800 both released. The high-end Nokia Lumia 900is expected to launch in March. If the estimate proves correct, it will be a good start for the series.

Espen Furnes, a fund manager for Storebrand Asset Management,was impressed by how the Lumia did. "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." Lee Simpson, an analyst for Jefferies based in London, noted that the lack of major competition probably left some space for Nokia to report a good three month quarter on January 26th. Simpson noted, "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." Nokia is expected to report a loss of  $119 million for the period.

While T-Mobile has the Nokia Lumia 710 priced at $49.99 with a signed two year contract, Walmart and Costco are offering the device for free and for 1 cent respectively, with a signed 2-year pact. The Nokia Lumia 800 has already been released in some countries, and will launch on Monday in Sweden. Late last year, there was speculation that the model was being tested by both Verizon and AT&T for the carriers' respective LTE networks. The flagship Nokia Lumia 900 received awards at the recent CES in Las Vegas, and will be coming to the States via AT&T with T-Mobile a possible destination as well.

It is important that the Nokia Lumia line get off to a good start as many analysts and customers aren't too confident that the Windows Phone powered models can compete with the Apple iPhone and Android models. To put in perspective the average analyst estimate of 1.3 million Nokia Lumia phones shipped in the period, analysts believe  Apple to have sold 25 to 30 million iPhone units during that same period.

source: Bloomberg via WMPoweruser