Nokia Q2 2012 results: $1 Billion Operating Loss, 4 Million Lumias Shipped

Nokia just posted their Q2 2012 financial results, and it’s a doozy. They had an operating loss of €826 billion (which is about $1 billion).

The Finnish Giant had previously warned investors that their Q2 results would be “similar to below” their huge $1.6 Billion loss in Q1 2012, but atleast they’re doing slightly better right now, eh? Still a huge loss though.

Nokia also revealed that they have shipped 4 million Lumia phones in this quarter (and 6.2 Million Symbian phones), which is a huge increase over the 1 Million Lumia windows phones sold in Q4 2011 and the 2 Million in Q1 2012. Heh looks like it’s increasing exponentially. Only 600,000 were sold in North America though.

The Finns managed to sell 83.7 Million phones totally, which is up from the 82.7 Million from last quarter but still down 4.8 million compared to Nokia’s position last year. Additionally, sales of their “Smart Devices” (Symbian+MeeGo+WP) dropped from 16.7 Million in Q1 to just 10.2 Million this quarter.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop stated:

“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 are executing with urgency on our restructuring program. We are disposing of non-core assets like Vertu. We are taking the necessary steps to restructure the operations of the company.”

The company’s main challenge now is to keep consumers interested in the current lumia range, until Windows Phone 8 devices ship in Q4 later this year. The recent pink Lumia 900 might have been one of their attempts, but they also dropped the price of the Lumia 900 to just $49.99 on AT&T U.S.A. Nokia has also stated that their current Lumia phones will get an update to Windows Phone 7.8, brining in some of the features from WP8.

Whether that’s enough though, remains to be seen. Q3 2012 will be their toughest quarter, with only the current Lumia phones left to fight for the brand, and no Windows Phone 8 devices until after Nokia World. Plus there’s the new iPhone coming along, and a never-ending queue of Android phones. Hopefully they’ll manage to pull it off.

(Image credit Junnu Lukkari from YLE)