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Nokia 5800 XpressMusic selling like hotcakes
By Charlie on 16 April 2009
GLOBAL – We have the benefit of sitting right in the middle of Nokia’s communications department. And, no joke, it’s a really communicative department, such that we get a good heads up on a lot of announcements, or what are the hot topics of the moment, or if there are any tidbits that you folks would find interesting.
Today is no different. Through the departmental grapevine, I heard some news about the sales of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic in the first quarter of this year. And, as you all know, we keep pushing the 5800, since we were predicting it would be big.
And we were right. Not to tease you anymore, this is what I found out.
Surprising even our number guys
One thing I have learned from working in this industry is that Nokia is usually very good at estimating how many devices it will sell per quarter, even now in these interesting times.
Well, it so happens that the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has sold over 2.6 million units in the first quarter. We humbly admit that this amount is beyond our own expectations. And, as we have been trumpeting all along, the 5800 seems to be doing really well when paired up with Comes With Music, especially in Singapore and Australia (alas, we were not able to get any numbers on that).
Toot-tooting our horn here, of course. But the company is pointing this out as an indicator of how well our “new” solutions-driven strategy is working.
Not resting on our laurels
While the feeling is good, let us continue this thought.
Nokia is, historically, a device company. But, we recognized long ago that it was more than hardware that people needed. As George Linardos (from the Ovi Store) said to me, what’s a radio without the programming? Same with mobile phones, what are phones without the services?
Nokia is no longer moving towards being an “internet company,” it’s past that milestone. The past few years has shown a deep rearrangement of our attitude in what we build, how we build, and what we want to achieve, more in line with how leading Internet services companies should think and act.
I think the new attitude is to understand that we are a “solutions company,” bringing amazing hardware and services together and “connecting people.” The funny thing is that we’ve always thought this way (that’s my own observation, mind you). It’s good to see the company go through a questioning and realignment process and find itself back at its core, but updated, refreshed, and more confident in itself.
Ok, enough of patting ourselves on the back. What do you folks think the sales of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic mean?
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April 16th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Thats quite amazing for a phone which doesnt even have “comes with music” feature in many countries. Well done Nokia!
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April 16th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
How many of those 2.6 million ended up being returned or sent to care points with the infamous faulty earpiece?
Now thats a figure I would like to see…..
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Anonymous Reply:
April 17th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
@Quietness,
“How many of those 2.6 million ended up being returned or sent to care points with the infamous faulty earpiece?
Now thats a figure I would like to see…..”
Hopefully you realize the “ear piece” was not a part of the 5800. it was the headphone piece and it was not manufactured bu nokia. Not to say they don’t deserve blame for putting out faulty products with their name on it but it was a relatively easy fix. Mail the “infamous earpiece” back and get a new pair. Its not a “mail phone in and wait weeks for it” type of fix.
Get your facts straight man. People dont return entire phones because a pair of headphones dont work
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charlie Reply:
April 19th, 2009 at 7:46 am
@Quietness, As far as I know it was a relatively smaller number (it was just a batch of phones, not all of them), so it wouldn’t really affect this number we report.
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Quietness Reply:
April 20th, 2009 at 8:45 am
@charlie, an article on mobile-review would strongly disagree with you.
@anon, get your facts straight before you criticise, not talking about the headphones and you’ve obviously been living under a rock if you haven’t heard about the earpiece problem! It’s an internal fault so the only way to get it fixed is by nokia or it’s repair agents. From eight of my friends (and me) that have bought this phone in the UK three have had to be returned for this fault, including my own.
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April 16th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Good work Nokia, it really gave a frail signal to the world that touchscreen is not only an apple matter but Nokia as well.. looking forward to the day that the phone will surpass the iPhone sales.
and I’m very excited on the N97 entry to the market segment and how Ovi store will play as an add up support.
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April 16th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
selling like hotcakes because is good
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Fernando Reply:
April 17th, 2009 at 9:59 am
@Gos, I agree, hotcakes are delicious!
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April 17th, 2009 at 8:29 am
It means that the N97 will do quite well, but not as much because of the price.
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April 18th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
I would also like to know how many come backs there are with the faulty ear piece.
Nokia’s care point changed my ‘faulty’ ear piece, but the problem remained, so now they sent it to their higher repair centre. All of that is fine, but what about the inconvenience? I’m without a phone for nearly 2 weeks now!
I paid good money for this phone and expected Nokia to maintain its high quality and service( I’ve only owned Nokias previously)!
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charlie Reply:
April 19th, 2009 at 7:48 am
@Shaad, Sorry to hear about that. I hope it ends up OK.
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May 12th, 2009 at 2:05 am
congratulations for a good sales record.
however, im still hoping for refinements or hardware immprovements in the next batch or generation..
1)earpiece. i think its already been resolved. good.
2)LCD. some are having problems with color changing, abnormal behavior of the screen.
3) design flaw. how come theres a gap (small opening) on the upper portion of the phone. you could see light source from those gaps. its annoying.
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September 17th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I’ve had 3 Nokia 5800 Xpress Music and all of them had the same fault, they kept turning off without me knowing, the screen would freeze, and when txting it would not recognize the letter, number or anything. Very dissappointed as love the phone but don’t have any confidence in them anymore. xxx
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