(Telegraph) Sales of Nokia's Lumia smartphones have hit a new record level, although the Finnish company still lags far behind Apple and Samsung as it prepares to complete the sale of its mobile phone business to Microsoft.
The Finnish company sold 8.8m Lumia devices in the three months to October, up 19pc from the previous quarter. This pales in comparison to the 33.8m iPhones sold by Apple, but the momentum will cheer Microsoft, whose Windows Phone 8 software is championed by Nokia.
Sales of Windows 8 smartphones have seen a slow start but have grown steadily since the software's launch a year ago.
Last month, Microsoft announced the €5.4bn (£4.6bn) acquisition of Nokia's devices unit. It hopes that by integrating the development of Microsoft software and Nokia hardware, Windows Phone will have a better chance of competing against Apple and Google's Android operating system.
Nokia said Lumia sales had been helped by the launch of its entry-level 520 model. It also gained some much-needed traction in the US, where mobile sales quadrupled to 1.4m.
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