Nokia is reportedly looking to give wireless carriers a financial stake in its Lumia handsets, rather than simply selling the devices through them. In return, these carriers would have exclusive access to Nokia’s lineup. The Finnish manufacturer hopes this tactic will help boost sales of its excellent but often overlooked Windows Phones.

This report comes by way of The Financial Times and claims that Nokia is already in talks with mobile operators in Europe, where its carrier relationships are strongest. Similar deals in the US aren’t out of the question, however, since many carriers are concerned about the influence of Apple and Google on the market.

Windows Phone 8 isn’t expected until November, about one month after the launch of the OS around October. The Espoo-based company has already begun teasing that “something amazing is coming” on September 7, the day after its Nokia World conference – which takes place September 5-6 – concludes. The Nokia Lumia 900, meanwhile, continues to sell fairly well on AT&T.

[The Financial Times via SuperSite for Windows]

Nokia’s financial results for the second quarter of 2012 are in, and while it isn’t necessarily pretty – the company lost $1.9 billion on $9.2 billion in revenue – it isn’t terrible either. Sales of Lumia devices are rapidly increasing quarter over quarter.

Just as a penny doubled every day is a better deal than a lump sum right away, Nokia has managed to double the number of devices sold every quarter since the first Lumia handset debuted last fall. Q2 2012 sales hit four million units sold, a 200% increase over Q1 2012′s two million units and Q4 2011′s one million. Overall sales of Windows Phone devices as a whole increased by approximately 50% quarter over quarter. These aren’t record-breaking numbers, but they do represent some hope for the company.

Nokia, of course, recently halved the price of the Lumia 900 to just $50, making the device a great deal for any new smartphone owner. There was some outcry when Microsoft announced that Windows Phone 8 would not be released as an update for older devices, but it doesn’t seem to have affected sales much, if at all. “Lumia activations were flat to up in the weeks following Windows Phone 8 announcement,” claimed Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. The company plans to extend the life of existing devices by “[providing] updates to current Lumia products over time, well beyond the launch of Windows Phone 8.” Looking forward, the Finnish manufacturer believes that “the Windows Phone 8 launch will be an important catalyst for Lumia.”

[Nokia]

AT&T and Nokia took a hatchet to the price of Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone, the Nokia Lumia 900, over the weekend. This normally isn’t too big of a deal—phones drop in price all the time—but many are concerned that this is a bad sign for Nokia. As if in confirmation, Nokia’s stock price fell three percent today and many analysts are calling for caution, but not abandonment, when it comes to Nokia stock.

“They are stuck between a rock and a hard place—to drive sales of their devices they are going to have to spend money on marketing and promotions, but at the same time the stock market is demanding they do anything other than spend money,” said Ovum analyst Nick Dillon.

Former world heavyweight champion Nokia has certainly been familiar with rocks and hard places, frying pans and fires, and any number of “oh darn” phrases that you can think of. Once the dominant force in the mobile world, Nokia is now well behind Samsung and Apple.

Nokia has thrown most of its still considerable force into Windows Phone and the Lumia 900—and it shows. The Lumia 900 has awesome specs, but with recent announcements that it will not benefit from a Windows 8 upgrade, can Nokia dig deep and bring out another seriously competitive flagship phone? Anybody who has insider information on a positive answer to this question, please message me privately so we can both buy massive amounts of Nokia stock.

Whatever the future holds, right now you can pick up an ultra-slick—and pretty darn fast—LTE smartphone for only $49.99 with the signing of a 2-year contract. No offense Nokia, but your loss, our gain.

[Reuters via FierceWireless]

Nearly all of the Windows Phone handset news has been centered around Nokia as of late, and for good reason. We haven’t received official sales numbers yet, but the recently released Nokia Lumia 900 appears to be doing quite well. AT&T has publicly stated that the device is selling better than expected, and it has been in and out of stock on the carrier’s website and Amazon Wireless. AT&T retail stores have also been low on stock, with sales associates claiming that it is “doing pretty fabulous” and ”selling like crazy.”

Some people believed that the Lumia 900s were temporarily pulled off of the shelves in order to fix the data bug, but this is not the case. In fact, Nokia’s data shows that most customers have opted to simply patch the device via a quick firmware update, which the Finnish manufacturer rapidly released last week. “The impact of customer swaps is insignificant,” said Nokia representative Karen Lachtanski. “We are producing more devices to satisfy demand as quickly as possible.”

From the looks of it, even Nokia was surprised by how fast the Lumia 900 has been flying off of the shelves. This is excellent news for the company, which is attempting to re-enter the US market, and Microsoft, which hopes to gain a larger hold of the market. The Lumia 900′s success should also have a positive impact on the OS as a whole, enticing even more developers to release their apps on the 80,000-strong Windows Phone Marketplace.

[AllThingsD | Gizmodo]