Nokia says sales are strong despite analyst reports

Nokia said sales the Lumia 800 have been good in Britain, disputing analyst reports of sluggish sales, which affected shares in the company.  "Lumia 800 sales in the U.K. are off to an excellent start," Nokia said in a statement. "Based on earliest data the sales start of the Lumia 800 is the best ever first week of Nokia smartphone sales in the U.K. in recent history."  "While it is not our policy to disclose individual product sales figures outside our quarterly financial results, we feel there has been premature sales analysis on the performance of the Lumia 800," spokesman James Etheridge said, as reported in MarketWatch. James Faucette and other Pacific Crest Securities Inc. analysts reported yesterday that Nokia may have shipped less than 1 million units of the Windows based phones for the quarter, with sales to customers of less than 500,000, down from an original forecast by analysts of 2 million. Nokia stock prices fell after the report.