Reuter site - Europeans lukewarm on Nokia Windows phone: survey

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Europeans lukewarm on Nokia Windows phone: survey

Fri, Dec 16 04:48 AM EST

HELSINKI (Reuters) - European consumers show little interest in Nokia's first smartphone using Microsoft's Windows Phone software, a survey by Exane BNP Paribas showed on Friday.

"With only 2.2 percent of surveyed buyers firmly intending to purchase the Lumia, Nokia's first flagship Windows Phone is ... far behind the current blockbusters, Apple's iPhone 4S and Samsung's Galaxy S II," analyst Alexander Peterc said in a note.

The brokerage slashed its view on sales of the Lumia to end-users to just 800,000 from its initial "ballpark estimate" of 2 million and said this compared with launch-quarter sales of between 3.5 million and 4 million for Nokia's previous flagship, the N8.

Exane BNP Paribas cut its price target on Nokia shares to 3.30 euros from 3.70 euros and stuck to its "underperform" rating on the stock, which was down 1.3 percent at 3.736 euros by 0939 GMT.

The brokerage surveyed 1,300 consumers in the five markets where the Lumia 800 had gone on sale in the week started December 5, but narrowed the sample to 456 who had declared an intention to purchase a smartphone in the next month.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by David Holmes)