Nokia's stock jumps on report of strong Lumia sales in Sweden

Nokia's shares jumped sharply after the Swedish operator Tele2 said it had sold out of Nokia's Lumia Windows Phone 8 smartphones two weeks before Christmas.

Nokia's Lumia 920 has reportedly sold out in Sweden.

"We sold out of the Lumia and hope to get more before Christmas," Thomas Ekman, head of Tele2's Swedish operations, said in an interview with Bloomberg. Ekman said the company received 2,000 to 3,000 Lumia handsets initially.

Nokia's share price responded to this news by climbing 2.4 per cent to nearly €3, before settling back at €2.93 by close of trading Wednesday.

Nokia also announced that its Lumia 920T--made exclusively to be compatible with China's TD-SCDMA network--will be available for pre-order in China, its new operator partner in the country, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Chinese consumers will have access to the standard Lumia 820 and 920 before the end of this year, while the 920T for China Mobile will reach China Mobile customers "in the coming weeks," a Nokia spokesman told the WSJ. The low-cost Lumia 620 that was unveiled by Nokia last week, will go on sale in January with a price tag of €244 without carrier subsidies.

Meanwile, Apple is due to launch its iPhone 5 handset in China on Dec. 14. 

However, despite the boost Nokia's stock is getting, Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette claimed in a research note that the company's Lumia portfolio is still not selling in large volumes.

"Our sell-through checks in North America and Western Europe indicate sales volumes that are quite low, while initial shipment volumes are similarly low," he wrote, according to Forbes. "We estimate that the company is tracking toward shipping roughly one million new Windows [Phone] 8 products in the December quarter, while it looks likely to sell through roughly half of those units, based on current run rates."

Of concern, the analyst adds that, relative to a year ago, Lumia volumes are "marginally better on a run-rate basis," mostly due to the availability of older Lumia models and lower price points.

"On a like-for-like basis (new 920 and 820 in 2012 versus 800 in 2011), we estimate that sales are similar or even slightly lower year-over-year," he noted.

For more:
- see this Bloomberg article
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)
- see this Forbes article

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