Nokia may have shipped more than 1M Lumia phones in 2011

From CNET News.com: Nokia's big push to re-establish itself in the modern smartphone world appears to be paying early dividends The company may have shipped as many as 1.3 million units of its Windows Phone Lumia handsets last year, says Bloomberg.

Surveying the usual range of analysts, Bloomberg found that forecasts varied from 800,000 to 2 million Lumia phones, with only one person estimating less than 1 million, resuling in an average of 1.3 million.

But those numbers refer to the number of units shipped to mobile carriers and retailers rather than actual sales to consumers. Sales to smartphone buyers were probably less than shipments, according to Bloomberg, since some Lumia handsets have remained on the shelves.

Stuck with its traditional Symbian phones, Nokia has been shedding smartphone market share and sales over the past year. Symbian sales fell 36 percent in the two quarters prior to the Lumia launch, Bloomberg said. And the company's fourth quarter results, due to be reported this Thursday, could show a 20 percent drop in sales and a loss of $119 million.

As such, Nokia is pinning its hopes on a revival courtesy of Microsoft's Windows Phone.

Reaching the European market last November, the Lumia 800 is destined for the U.S. as an unlocked version sometime in the coming months. Early data suggested that sales of the 800 were off to a strong start, according to Bloomberg and other sources. However, a more recent but more narrow report published by PaidContent.org found that sales, at least in the U.K., were sluggish in November.

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