Strategy Analytics defends Nokia's Lumia range, notes faster growth than the iPhone and Samsung

While many see Nokia as struggling with the Lumia range, analysts Strategy Analytics have come to the defense of the beleaguered company, noting that Nokia is ramping up their Lumia range faster than the iPhone did 5 years ago and Samsung did 3 years ago.

“We estimate Nokia shipped 6.9 million Lumia smartphones with the Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Phone operating system cumulatively worldwide during the first three quarters after commercial launch, from Q4 2011 to Q2 2012,” Neil Shah, a senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, said in a statement. ”This compares with 3.7 million units of the Apple iPhone family in its first three quarters during 2007, and 1.3 million units for the Samsung Android family in its first three quarters during 2009. It is an encouraging start for Nokia and Microsoft.”

Shah’s colleague Neil Mawtson added, “Based on historical shipment benchmarks, Nokia’s new Lumia portfolio is performing reasonably well. Some of the pessimism surrounding Nokia and Microsoft’s emerging partnership so far may be misplaced. However, Nokia and Microsoft are clearly not out of the woods yet. With a new Apple iPhone 5 expected on the horizon, and Samsung’s Galaxy S3 selling in huge quantities, Nokia will need to pull something impressive out of the bag for the next-generation Windows Phone 8 launch later this year to sustain its tentative early momentum.”

By some measures Nokia’s Windows Phone growth has been exponential, growing from 1 to 2 to 4 million over 3 quarters.  Unfortunately it seems unlikely Nokia will hit 8 million Lumia sales in the next quarter, but if it did it would be an achievement indeed.

Via BGR.com