WinPho sceptics cut Lumia 800 sales estimates in half
Nokia huffs, sticks fingers in ears
One swallow doesn’t make a summer – and week’s worth of phone sales doesn’t make a comeback.
Nokia has responded to gloomy analysts sniffing at the initial consumer response to its first Windows phone. In a statement, Nokia says it’s had its highest-ever first-week sales from the Lumia 800 – but analysts say it will ship fewer units in the first quarter than they expected: 500,000 rather than a million, according to Pacific Crest.
The phone has received positive reviews (here's mine), but Bernstein Research’s Pierre Ferragu demurred.
“With no breakthrough innovation, we believe Nokia’s new phones are unlikely to get traction in a highly concentrated high-end," he wrote.
Nokia believes, with some justification, that punters will like the phone when they get the chance to see it first hand. It’s put a lot of effort into showcasing the Lumia 800 in stores, training and motivating channel sales staff, and ensuring demo units don’t go haywire.
But it’s also battling two years of rampant Android growth – established now as a safe bet for consumers – and its own catastrophic disappearance from the sales channel. Nokia sales crashed 82 per cent in Q3. It’s going to take some time to restore Nokia’s brand reputation for smartphones – it won’t happen overnight.
The Lumia 800
I recently wondered if Windows Phone was the best piece of software Microsoft had ever written. It’s certainly original and instantly useful, with clear advantages over the competition. How often can you say that?
Redmond’s deep cash reserves and media buying power certainly ought to make it a powerful ally. Perhaps Microsoft is so astounded to produce consumer software that people like, it’s resting on its laurels. It ought to remember that with almost negligible awareness of WP, the hard work on establish the platform is still ahead of it. ®
COMMENTS
Speak for yourself
I loathed Windows Mobile and Series 60, had reserved respect for iOS but was firmly an Android man from first launch until earlier this year. Back in April I took a punt on WP7 (a samsung model) and I haven't looked back. It's great, I love it. I want it to get better of course but I like it a lot more in its infancy than I ever liked Android.
I get very tired of people who haven't used WP7 proclaiming with confidence that it's shit. No day-to-day experience of it = no valid opinion.
eh?
So, the only reason you wouldn't consider one is because it is a nokia running 'M$' (M$? really???) software?
Says it all really...
It doesn't 'network'
The problem with this phone is that the looks are great (fast, shiney, etc.) but leaves much to desire. For example the simple issue of being able to use your own music / tunes as a ringtone (in other words: using an mp3 as ringtone). The original Win7 release did not support this, that's simply very poor with the current standards.
But my main gripe is that this critter doesn't really connect. Not in the sense I'd expect from a Windows phone.
Although I hardly use it these days I have a Toshiba Portege PDA / phone which runs a copy of Windows Mobile 6 (iirc, the classic "start menu on a phone" thingie). It came with a file explorer which I heavily utilized. Picture my surprise to learn that it fully supported Windows networking!
Simply adding "\\magi" made it check the shares on my server. I could even utilize a small video application ('MTV') to access video contents from such a share. AVI files which would hardly fit on the internal memory itself, but it played easily!
In other words; with a Windows phone I expect to be able to access my Windows computers like I do with my current phone; I plug it in using a cable and can then use it as an USB mass storage. Photo's, sounds (mp3) or sometimes even office documents if I have to (and don't have an USB stick around).
That simply task is not possible with this phone. Accessing your local Windows network? Forget about it.
Why would I want a "Windows Phone" when it can't even do so much as access my Windows computer ? I don't want to sync contacts from hotmail; I know better than to keep my customer contact information online. No; I want the phone to grab 'm straight from Outlook, like I'm doing myself using a VBA macro in Word. If I can do it, why can't this critter ?
Sure; I'm pretty confident that it will rock keeping all your social media updates present and when you do have contact information stored into it it'll probably look nice.
I simply prefer functionality over nice. And having to upload all your data to an online storage merely to get your phone to access it is not something I classify as a functional solution.
As far as I can tell
Almost none - you can pick which live tiles you want on the home screen, but that's it.
That's all the manufacturers can do as well - which is both good, and bad:
- Consistent look-and-feel across different Windows Phone 7-based smartphones, less crap forced by operators.
- If MS get it wrong, every WP7 manufacturer is fooked as they can't change it.
- Zero differentiation, so customer brand loyalty is to WP7, *not* to Nokia/HTC/Samsung etc.
Thus it's a very dangerous route to market - if a customer likes their Lumia 800, it's WP7 they like, and not Nokia. Thus their next phone is no more likely to be a Nokia than any other WP7 based phone.
- Compare HTC Radar, Nokia Lumia 800, HTC 7 Mozart, HTC TITAN, Nokia Lumia 710. All very nearly identical, the only difference is the edge of the casing.
Because Android allows manufacturer customisation (and even outright forking), they can differentiate their Android-based phones. Thus customer brand loyalty is towards the specific manufacturer (and their overlay or spin of Android), rather than simply Android itself.
For example, you can recognise the HTC Sense UI from the other side of the phone shop!
The downside is of course that someone having a bad experience may blame Android rather than the phone manufacturer and reject all other Android-based phones.
Is that the bigger risk? I don't think so.
What exactly will trip up the average non techie phone user? The ease of listening to music while simultaneously doing EVERYTHING else your phone can do? The switching of sim/memory cards thing hasn't been a problem for iPhone users...why would that be a problem here? No non-techie switches cards. The Windows Phone is absolutely simple for non-techies...nothing to screw up. I've NEVER not ONCE had to reboot my phone for any technical reason. It doesn't lock up, it just does its job. Anyone who talks about his tech net subscription in the same voice as "average user" doesn't know anything about the average user.
Also it's quite apparent that the tech net poster hasn't used the phone because he completely misinterpreted what he read.
How about this, if you have no experience with the Windows Phone OS you don't make comments about it as though you know what you are talking about? How about if your experience with the OS is limited to 5 minutes trying one out that's attached to an anti-theft lanyard at a phone store you admit you don't really know the OS?
