Nokia has halved the price in the US of its flagship Lumia 900 smartphone to $49.99 (£32), barely three months after its launch, in an effort to stem losses in market share to rivals such as Apple and Samsung.
The initial handset cost of the Lumia 900 Windows Phone device has been cut from $99 to $49.99 with a two-year agreement, a Nokia spokesman told newswires on Sunday. The contract price has not been reduced.
Nokia's phone is sold through AT&T stores. Nokia's spokesman said the price cut "is part of our ongoing lifecycle management, which is jointly done between Nokia and carrier customers". He said a price cut is not unusual at this time in a smartphone's life cycle, noting that Samsung has cut the price for its Galaxy SII, launched before the Lumia 900.
Data from ComScore, which maintains a panel of US consumers who it polls monthly, combined with other panel studies from Nielsen, suggest that Nokia has sold about 330,000 Lumia phones in the US since its launch. Commenting on the data, Horace Dediu, of the Asymco consultancy, said: "If it was a fledgling company, it would be a great start. Depends on whether Nokia sees itself that way."
However financial analysts seem to hold little hope for the company: on Friday Bernstein Research's Pierre Ferragu gave Nokia's shares an "underperform" rating and cut his price target to $1.56. He estimated that over the quarter from April to June Nokia sold a total of 1.1m to 1.4m Lumia phones, of 2.2m shipped.
Source: The Guardian
