Kantar: T-Mobile USA is Nokia' strongest US carrier with 45% of its sales

Kantar has been teasing some numbers from their Q4 2013 report which provides some insight into Nokia’s performance in USA and abroad.

According to their research 45% of Nokia’s sale were on US’s budget carrier, T-Mobile. As can be expected, the vast majority of these sales were low-end Windows Phones, with 68% of Nokia’s Q4 2013 Lumia sales being the Nokia Lumia 520 and 521, which was retailing for as low as $60.

This leaves only 32% for handsets like the Nokia Lumia 925, 928, 1020 and 1520, and given the usual relatively small volume of the US market suggests sales of some of these handsets could be measured in tens rather than hundreds of thousands of units.

Still, 9 million US residents would prefer a Nokia over any other handset, while 39 million would consider one.

This pales in comparison to China, where Nokia is the top choice for 57 million Chinese, with 123 million willing to consider one.  The implication to the Lumia range of losing the Nokia brand remains worrying.

Kantar reports Windows Phone users engage about the same amount as Android users with their handsets, which is less than iOS.  This is likely the consequence of targeting the lower-end market.

Lastly, they revealed that while 36% of new Windows Phone users switched from feature phones in UK, an increasing amount were also switching from Blackberry.

See Kantar’s tweets after the break.

68% of #Nokia Lumia USA handset sales in Q4 were 520/521

— KWP ComTech (@KWP_ComTech) January 23, 2014

Nokia's relative success in the low-mid range shows in the sales share across US carrier where in 4Q13 45% was done at T-Mobile

— KWP ComTech (@KWP_ComTech) January 23, 2014

…but in the USA #Nokia remains the top mobile preference for just 9 million Americans, whilst 39 million consider them

— KWP ComTech (@KWP_ComTech) January 23, 2014

#Nokia remains the top mobile preference for 57 million Chinese consumers, whilst 123 million at least consider them

— KWP ComTech (@KWP_ComTech) January 23, 2014

While user engagement on iOS remains higher we see little difference between Android and WP

— KWP ComTech (@KWP_ComTech) January 23, 2014

In the UK while the great majority of ³switchers" 2 WP come fm feature phones (36%) we have seen a growth in Bberry users

— KWP ComTech (@KWP_ComTech) January 23, 2014