Nokia loses whopping £427m as phone sales slump

Nokia's sales have nosedived, with the troubled Finnish company announcing an eye-watering £427m loss. Ouch.

Nokia today announced its results for the second quarter of 2011, and it's been a wince-inducing three months. Smart-phone sales fell by a third as Nokia struggled to compete with Android phones and the iPhone.

Overall, Nokia's phone sales fell by 18 per cent in the last three months. Nokia still sold 88.5 million phones, but its profits made a headlong plunge of 44 per cent.

Nokia boss Stephen Elop proved himself a master of understatement, blaming the "disappointing" results on "the challenges we are facing during our strategic transformation [which] manifested in a greater than expected way". That's management speak for "oh crap".

But Elop and Nokia still have an ace in the hole -- the Finnish phone flingers are working on Nokia Windows Phone smart phones. Judging by today's results, they can't work fast enough.

A prototype called Sea Ray has been glimpsed in Elop's hands, but it'll be another quarter before Nokia Windows Phones hit the shelves, and even longer before they can make a difference to Nokia's bottom line. There's precious little indication that the intervening time will see a reversal in Nokia's nosediving results.

Sea Ray is based on the recently announced Nokia N9, but the N9 won't rescue the company. In fact, it's already facing an uncertain future. As the only device powered by the doomed MeeGo software, it hasn't yet been confirmed whether the phone will even come to the UK or US.

They do say things are darkest before the dawn, so will Windows Phone usher in a bright new day for Nokia? Or is the Finnish company finished if things don't turn round? Knock out your thoughts in the comments section below or on our Facebook page.