Finnish phone giant Nokia has released its interim financial report for Q2 2012, revealing net sales of €7.5 billion for the quarter, an increase from Q1 2012’s €7.4 billion. Unfortunately, the company made an operating loss of €826 million during its second fiscal quarter.

On the positive side, Nokia managed to increase its Q2 mobile phone volumes on a quarter-on-quarter as well as a year-on-year basis to 73.5 million units. Together with 10.2 million smartphones sold, the firm shipped 83.7 million mobile devices during Q2.   

Lumia shipments doubling every quarter

Another big achievement is that Q2 shipment volumes for Nokia’s Windows Phone OS powered Lumia range of smartphones, increased to four million units. This may seem small in comparison to Samsung’s expected 50 million smartphones and Apple’s anticipated 30.5 million iPhone sales during Q2 2012, but means that the firm is doubling its Lumia shipment volumes on a quarterly basis.

The four million Lumia devices shipped within Q2 2012 is double the figure obtained during Q1 2012 (two million), which in itself was twice as much as the Espoo-based company achieved during its fiscal Q4 2011 period (one million).

Nokia stated that it plans on delivering software updates to its current range of Lumia devices  over time, “well beyond the launch of Windows Phone 8.” The company is of the opinion that the launch of the forthcoming iteration of Microsoft’s mobile operating system (OS) will result in a significant sales boost for Lumia smartphones.

Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO, commented on the Q2 2012 interim report by stating that, “Nokia is taking action to manage through this transition period. While Q2 was a difficult quarter, Nokia employees are demonstrating their determination to strengthen our competitiveness, improve our operating model and carefully manage our financial resources.”

In related news, Nokia recently reached an app store milestone in that there are now over 120 000 apps available from the Nokia Store, with mobile users downloading more than 15 million application on a daily basis. Additionally, Vodacom recently made the impressive Symbian-operating Nokia 808 PureView with its 41 MP camera sensor available locally.