From 1998 to 2012,
Nokia was the largest vendor of mobile phones in the world, which included early
smartphones built on its
Symbian platform. However, in recent years, its market share declined as a result of the growing use of touchscreen smartphones from other vendors, such as
Apple's
iPhone line and
Android-based products. In 2010, its market share had declined to 28%, and in April 2012,
Samsung Electronics (a prominent user of Android) ultimately overtook Nokia as the largest mobile phone vendor in the world. Nokia's CEO
Stephen Elop vetoed the idea of producing Android devices, believing the company wouldn't be able to suitably differentiate its Android products from that of other vendors. In an employee memo, Elop infamously described the company as being on a "burning platform", blaming the "war of
ecosystems" between
iOS and Android as part of Nokia's overall struggle, and asserting that the company needed to make major changes to its operation.
Partnership between Microsoft and Nokia , the first Lumia device In February 2011, Stephen Elop and Microsoft's CEO
Steve Ballmer jointly announced a major business partnership between Nokia and Microsoft, which would see Nokia adopt
Windows Phone as its primary platform on future smartphones, replacing both Symbian and
MeeGo. The deal also included the integration of
Bing as the
search engine on Nokia devices, and the integration of
Nokia Maps into Microsoft's own
mapping services. Aligning with Microsoft had been considered a possibility by analysts due to Elop's prior employment with the company. Nokia unveiled its first
Windows Phone 7-based devices, the mid-range
Lumia 710 and high-end
Lumia 800, on 26 October 2011 at its Nokia World conference. Motivated by requests from the U.S. carrier
AT&T for an
LTE-enabled device, Nokia quickly developed the
Lumia 900 as a follow-up, first unveiled at the 2012
International CES. The Lumia 900 received heavy promotion by the carrier as a
flagship device, but its launch was dampened by a software bug that prevented the device from connecting to certain mobile data networks, forcing AT&T to issue credits to those who purchased the device. Upon its launch in April 2012, the Lumia 900 was listed as a top seller on
Amazon.com, but online sales began to taper off by May. While not revealing further details, a Nokia representative stated that the company was "pleased with the consumer reaction, as well as the support we have received from AT&T", while AT&T's mobility chief
Ralph de la Vega stated that the Lumia 900 had "exceeded expectations". In June 2012, both Nokia and Microsoft received much criticism after it was revealed that the Windows Phone 7 Lumia devices will not be upgradable to Microsoft's second generation Windows Phone platform,
Windows Phone 8. It has been said that those devices won't be upgraded because Windows Phone 8 uses an entirely different kernel (
Windows NT). The original Lumia range instead received a different update called Windows Phone 7.8. Later in September 2012, Nokia unveiled the
Lumia 820 and the
Lumia 920, its first two devices to use Windows Phone 8. Both featured
NFC, with the Lumia 820 embedding a microSD card slot, and an optional Wireless Charging Shell for
Qi wireless charging. The Lumia 920 also notably featured Qi wireless charging, and a "
PureView" camera with
optical image stabilization. While Nokia received criticism when it was revealed that a demonstration video of its image stabilization technology was, in fact, filmed using a professional camera, the Lumia 920 was a commercial success for the company. At
MWC 2013, Nokia introduced two more Windows Phone 8 devices: the mid-range Nokia
Lumia 720 and the budget Nokia
Lumia 520, the latter of which has become the highest selling Windows phone device ever. In 2013, Nokia also introduced the
Lumia 925, a revised version of the 920 with a slimmer build incorporating aluminium, and the
Lumia 1020, which features a 41-megapixel camera based on technology from its Symbian-based
808 PureView. On 22 October 2013, Nokia extended the Lumia brand into the
tablet market with the unveiling of the
Lumia 2520; running Microsoft's
Windows RT operating system, it was the company's first tablet since the
Nokia Internet tablet range. Some critics believed that the usage of Windows RT rather than full Microsoft Windows 8.1 led to bad sales, as most major Windows tablet makers have used Windows 8.1 in favour of Windows RT. Alternatively, others have claimed that the device's failure was due to its heavy weight and high price. Lumia 2520 was discontinued in early 2015. Although sales of the Lumia line had exceeded those of
BlackBerry in the same period, Nokia still made an operating loss of €115m, with revenues falling 24% to €5.7bn following the second quarter of 2013. Over the past nine quarters, Nokia sustained €4.1 billion worth of operating losses. In Q3 2013, Lumia sales hit 8.8 million worldwide; over three times higher than the same period the year before; and double the figure in North America compared to the previous quarter. At the same time, overall Windows Phone market share hit double figures in several countries in Europe and other regions.
Acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business On 3 September 2013, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire Nokia's mobile phone business (including rights to the Lumia and low-end
Asha brands) in an overall deal of over
US$7bn. Stephen Elop stepped down as Nokia's CEO and returned to Microsoft as its head of devices as part of the deal, which closed in early 2014. While Microsoft will license the Nokia name under a 10-year agreement, the company will only be able to use it on
feature phones: those running the
Series 30,
Series 30+ and the
Series 40 mobile operating systems based on
Java ME and
MediaTek technology, respectively. These changes resulted in future Lumia models being first-party hardware produced by Microsoft. Codenames for Lumia phones developed from late 2013 were based on
James Bond movies, including "Moneypenny" (which became
Nokia Lumia 630) and "Goldfinger" (which would be the cancelled
Lumia "McLaren").
Android prototypes On 13 September 2013, the
New York Times writer Nick Wingfield revealed that Nokia had been testing the
Android operating system on its Lumia hardware. It was one of two known Android projects at the company; the other was running the OS on low–end
Asha hardware, which resulted in the
Nokia X family of devices. Despite the testing, the Android-based Lumia handsets were never released and only altered Asha devices were brought to the market. In July 2014, Microsoft announced that it would discontinue the majority of its Nokia-branded devices, including the Asha, S30, S40, and X platforms, in favor of low-cost Lumia devices inheriting their design. This left S30+ as Microsoft's only remaining Nokia-branded phone platform until it was sold to
HMD Global in May 2016, who, the following February, would announce the first Nokia-branded true Android phone, the
Nokia 6, in January 2017.
Under Microsoft ownership , the first Microsoft branded Lumia device Even after the acquisition of Nokia's mobile device business by Microsoft, several Lumia devices were unveiled by Microsoft Mobile in September 2014 that still carried the Nokia name, including the
Lumia 830 and
Lumia 735. In July 2014, it had been reported by
evleaks that Microsoft was attempting to license the Nokia name in a co-branding scheme, which would have possibly seen future devices branded as "Nokia by Microsoft". As a part of the change of ownership, the social network pages have also been rebranded as Microsoft Lumia rather than Microsoft Mobile; this sought to emphasize the Windows Phone over other Nokia mobile phones while also updating social network pages of Windows Phone to the new Microsoft Lumia branding. To reflect this change, Nokia Conversations was also rebranded as
Lumia Conversations, and NokNok.tv to Lumia Conversations UK. However, the rebranding has not been consistent, as the Nokia Army was renamed the Spartan Nation and the support site for legacy phones, accessories, various Nokia-branded devices, and services, originally Nokia Discussions, was renamed the Microsoft Mobile Community. The Lumia Beamer was the last Lumia-branded application to have its
URL changed from Nokia to Lumia, signifying the end of the transitional term during which Microsoft was allowed to use Nokia.com and related sites. However, in October 2014, Microsoft officially announced that it would phase out the Nokia brand in its promotion and production of Lumia smartphones, and that future Lumia models would be branded solely with the name and logo of Microsoft. In November 2014, Microsoft announced its first self-branded phone,
Microsoft Lumia 535. Rebranding the Lumia line did not affect sales, though some critics believed that it might negatively influence consumers' decisions due to Nokia's established reputation for durability compared to the relative infancy of Microsoft's brand in the consumer phone space. The
Nokia Lumia 638 was the last Lumia product to bear the Nokia brand, and was only released in India in December 2014. In November 2014, a post by a Microsoft
Twitter account stated that all Nokia and Microsoft Lumia smartphones running Windows Phone 8 and 8.1 would receive updates to
Windows 10; however, following the official unveiling, Microsoft denied this, stating that they instead were targeting the "majority" of Lumia phones and that not all phones would receive the update or support all of its features. Later, Microsoft confirmed that low-end devices with 512 MB of RAM (including the
Nokia Lumia 520, which represents 24.5% of all Windows Phone devices sold), would also get the Windows 10 upgrade, but reaffirmed that not all of its features would be supported on these devices. Additionally, Microsoft stated on January 16, 2015, that low-end Windows Phone 8.1 phones will not get some Lumia Denim features. In July 2015,
Bloomberg reported that Microsoft had a planned restructuring of Microsoft Mobile, which includes the Microsoft Lumia range. This would reportedly include a
write down of approximately US$7.6 billion on the acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business and a layoff of around 7,200 employees. It was also reported that Microsoft would release fewer first-party devices each year. As part of a larger restructuring, the Microsoft Devices & Studios engineering group was merged with the Operating Systems Engineering Group to form the larger Windows & Devices Engineering Group. In July 2015, it was announced that the head of
Surface, Panos Panay, would head the new Microsoft devices unit, which would include the Microsoft Lumia as well as various other Microsoft hardware products such as the
Band,
HoloLens, and
Xbox. In October 2015, Microsoft launched the first Lumia devices running on
Windows 10 Mobile: the
Lumia 950,
Lumia 950 XL and
Lumia 550. Sales of Lumia devices declined between fiscal years 2015 and 2016, with phone revenue decreasing by $4.2 billion or 56%. When Microsoft announced the acquisition in September 2013, 7.3 million devices were sold in the quarter, but this shrunk to 1.2 million at the quarter ending June 2016. Since the Lumia series make up 95% of total Windows Phone/Windows 10 Mobile sales, the operating system market share also shrunk along with it. Throughout 2016 Microsoft slowed down production volumes of Lumia devices, and it was speculated that the series would be discontinued by the end of 2016. Microsoft briefly stopped selling Lumia devices from the Microsoft Store at the end of 2016—with sales estimated to have dropped below one million units by the end of 2016. Shortly after the discontinuation of the
Elite X3, HP's attempt to bring Windows 10 Mobile to a niche market, Microsoft's corporate vice president
Joe Belfiore confirmed that Microsoft would no longer sell or manufacture new mobile devices. The existing devices would receive bug fixes and security updates only. The Lumia 950 was Microsoft Mobile's last Lumia flagship and the last Windows Phone flagship device. A supposed successor called Microsoft Lumia 960 (codenamed
Northstar) was reportedly canceled while being in its prototype tests level. The next Microsoft phone release was the
Microsoft Surface Duo, while a Windows Phone-powered Surface Neo foldable tablet was cancelled too a few years later, after its introduction. == Lumia updates ==