Nokia Rumours Persist As Phone 7 Sales Reach 1.5m

Microsoft is claiming 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 handset sales within two months of their availability. These are shipments to suppliers rather than end customers but, if discussions are going on between Microsoft and Nokia and they bear fruit, porting Windows Phone 7 onto Nokia phones could bolster user numbers.

Microsoft’s claim marks a reversal of the company’s previous reluctance to discuss anything numbers-related. But the sales figure would be impressive if it can be converted to devices actually in use.

Retail Presence And Customer Momentum

“We are pleased that phone manufacturers sold over 1.5 million phones in the first six weeks which helps build customer momentum and retail presence,” Achim Berg, Microsoft’s vice president of business and marketing for Windows Phones, mentioned in a Q&A posted on the company’s corporate Website, “Those numbers apparently meet the company’s internal expectations.

Microsoft hopes that strong Windows Phone 7 sales will allow it to recover from several quarters’ worth of market share declines in smartphones.

The blogged news could mark a turn in the tide for Microsoft. In November, TheStreet.com reported that only 40,000 Windows Phone 7 devices were sold on the platform’s first day of US availability. This led some pundits to assume the worst in terms of marketplace performance. By contrast, both Apple and Google claim hundreds of thousands of activations per day for their respective smartphone platforms.

Analysts seem to agree that Windows Phone 7 has a long – and possibly very tough – fight before it but Al Hilwa, an analyst with IDC, disagrees.

“We can say that, for a company that just a few months ago was an also-ran in mobile, having 10 smartphones released in 30 countries is not a trivial achievement. I would not be surprised if Microsoft had the third-largest app portfolio in the industry by the middle of next year,” he wrote in a research note.

Nokia Tie-in Could Benefit Microsoft

Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin, in an editorial published on Russian Website Mobile Review, suggested that Nokia and Microsoft initiated the talks a month ago. “They are talking about the creation of a new line of Windows Phone devices which could be sold under Nokia brand, via Nokia distribution channels and have some typical Nokia features.”

For its part, Nokia reportedly declined to comment on rumours and speculation.

In the past, Nokia has denied any intention of adding to its smartphone ecosystem. “This stance was strongly reinforced by our management during Nokia World and we have no plans to use other operating systems,” company spokesperson Leo McKay told Bloomberg in September, the last time rumours emerged that Nokia would integrate Windows Phone 7 into its offerings.

But according to IDC’s Hilwa, adopting Windows Phone 7 would hold advantages for Nokia. “The hardware competition is fierce and companies like Samsung and LG have made enormous gains on the device side by being agnostic and opportunistic,” he wrote in an email to eWEEK.

Nokia’s quest to “leverage smartphone device economics”, he suggested, will eventually mean “coming to terms with Android and Windows Phone 7”. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s history as an ex-Microsoft executive could give the latter an advantage if Nokia wants to choose an “agnostic and opportunistic” operating system.

“I would say that [Windows Phone 7] has much greater alignment with Nokia’s intellectual property DNA than [does] Android,” Hilwa added. “I believe an alignment between these two vendors is a win-win in the industry.”