Natural gas price falls after supply report (AP)
NEW YORK ? The price of natural gas dropped Thursday for the first time in a week after the government said U.S. supplies are still well above what’s normal for this time of year.
A report from the Energy Information Administration on Thursday showed the U.S. had 3.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in storage ? a level that’s 21.4 percent higher than the five-year average.
Natural gas futures fell 12 cents, or 4.5 percent, to end at $2.6050 per 1,000 cubic feet in New York.
The decline is good news for many Americans. Natural gas is used for heating in more than half of U.S. homes and many utilities also burn natural gas to generate electricity. So falling prices should eventually mean lower bills for many consumers.
The price of natural gas had rebounded by about 17 percent from a 10-year low over the past few days. That followed announcements by major energy companies that they would reduce gas production. Chesapeake Energy Corp. and ConocoPhillips said they would cut natural gas production by about 600 million cubic feet per day. And Consol Energy said Thursday that it will set aside plans to drill 23 wells in the gas-rich Marcellus Shale region in the eastern U.S.
But analysts don’t think it’s enough to significantly reduce the nation’s huge supplies.
“There’s an awful amount of gas,” said Gene McGillian, a broker and analyst at Tradition Energy. “We need to see more and more producers make cuts.”
U.S. natural gas supplies have grown over the past few years as companies use new techniques to tap vast deposits of petroleum-rich shale.
Barring any unseasonable swings in the weather, natural gas companies likely will trim production by another 2 billion cubic feet per day this year, independent energy analyst Stephen Smith said.
“They’re just going to have to,” Smith said. “Either because they won’t want to sell it at the lower price, or because there will be no more room to store it.”
Meanwhile, benchmark oil prices rose on Thursday after new reports on jobs and manufacturing pointed to a steadily improving U.S. economy that will need more oil.
The Commerce Department said orders for long-lasting, durable goods rose in December, and a private survey showed a range of economic indicators got stronger at the end of 2011.
The jobs market appears to be improving, even after a modest increase in unemployment claims last week.
Benchmark crude on Thursday rose 30 cents to finish at $99.70 per barrel in New York. Brent crude, which is used to price foreign oil imported by U.S. refineries, rose by 98 cents to end at $110.79 in London.
Meanwhile, retail gasoline stayed at a national average of $3.38 per gallon, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service.
In other energy trading, heating oil rose 3 cents to finish at $3.05 per gallon and gasoline futures rose about a penny to end at $2.85 per gallon.
___
Follow Chris Kahn on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ChrisKahnAP
amanda bynes molly sims hostess brands nh primary david crowder band amber rose natalie wood
NASA satellites see cyclone Funso exiting Mozambique Channel
ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2012) ? Powerful Cyclone Funso is now beginning to exit the Mozambique Channel, and NASA’s Aqua satellite captured a stunning image of the storm that shows the depth and extent of it.
NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Funso on January 26 at 1110 UTC (6:10 a.m. EST). The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, better known as the MODIS instrument captured a true color image of the storm that showed a 25 nautical-mile-wide (29 miles/~46 km) eye, and clouds swirling down into it. The outer extent of Funso’s clouds skirted Madagascar to the east, and Mozambique to the west.
At 0900 UTC (4 a.m. EST) on January 26, Funso’s maximum sustained winds were down to 100 knots (115 mph/185 kph). It was located about 277 nautical miles (319 miles/513 km) east-northeast of Maputo, Mozambique. Its center was pinpointed near 24.0 South latitude and 39.2 East longitude. It was moving to the south-southeast near 4 knots (4.6 mph/7.4 kph). The storm is over 400 nautical miles (460 miles/~741 km) in diameter, which is the extent of tropical-storm-force winds.
Funso is expected to maintain cyclone strength over the next couple of days as it moves out of the Mozambique Channel and into the open waters of the Southern Indian Ocean, where it will begin to weaken.
Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:
Other bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. The original article was written by Rob Gutro.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/8hH1ojIWHNc/120126224520.htm
frida kahlo costa rica robert johnson spook red box canary islands crank
Anthropologists clarify link between Asians and early Native-Americans
Thursday, January 26, 2012
A tiny mountainous region in southern Siberia may have been the genetic source of the earliest Native Americans, according to new research by a University of Pennsylvania-led team of anthropologists.
Lying at the intersection of what is today Russia, Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan, the region known as the Altai “is a key area because it’s a place that people have been coming and going for thousands and thousands of years,” said Theodore Schurr, an associate professor in Penn’s Department of Anthropology. Schurr, together with doctoral student Matthew Dulik and a team of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, collaborated on the work with Ludmila Osipova of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia.
Among the people who may have emerged from the Altai region are the predecessors of the first Native Americans. Roughly 20-25,000 years ago, these prehistoric humans carried their Asian genetic lineages up into the far reaches of Siberia and eventually across the then-exposed Bering land mass into the Americas.
“Our goal in working in this area was to better define what those founding lineages or sister lineages are to Native American populations,” Schurr said.
The team’s study, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, analyzed the genetics of individuals living in Russia’s Altai Republic to identify markers that might link them to Native Americans. Prior ethnographic studies had found distinctions between tribes in the northern and southern Altai, with the northern tribes apparently linked linguistically and culturally to ethnic groups farther to the north, such as the Uralic or Samoyedic populations, and the southern groups showing a stronger connection to Mongols, Uighurs and Buryats.
Schurr and colleagues assessed the Altai samples for markers in mitochondrial DNA, which is maternally inherited, and in Y chromosome DNA, which is passed from fathers to sons. They also compared the samples to ones previously collected from individuals in southern Siberia, Central Asia, Mongolia, East Asia and a variety of American indigenous groups. Because of the large number of gene markers examined, the findings have a high degree of precision.
“At this level of resolution we can see the connections more clearly,” Schurr said.
Looking at the Y chromosome DNA, the researchers found a unique mutation shared by Native Americans and southern Altaians in the lineage known as Q.
“This is also true from the mitochondrial side,” Schurr said. “We find forms of haplogroups C and D in southern Altaians and D in northern Altaians that look like some of the founder types that arose in North America, although the northern Altaians appeared more distantly related to Native Americans.”
Calculating how long the mutations they noted took to arise, Schurr’s team estimated that the southern Altaian lineage diverged genetically from the Native American lineage 13,000 to 14,000 years ago, a timing scenario that aligns with the idea of people moving into the Americas from Siberia between 15,000 and 20,000 years ago.
Though it’s possible, even likely, that more than one wave of people crossed the land bridge, Schurr said that other researchers have not yet been able to identify a similar geographic focal point from which Native Americans can trace their heritage.
“It may change with more data from other groups, but, so far, even with intensive work in Mongolia, they’re not seeing the same things that we are,” he said.
In addition to elucidating the Asia-America connection, the study confirms that the modern cultural divide between southern and northern Altaians has ancient genetic roots. Southern Altaians appeared to have had greater genetic contact with Mongolians than they did with northern Altaians, who were more genetically similar to groups farther to the north.
However, when looking at the Altaians’ mitochondrial DNA in isolation, the researchers did observe greater connections between northern and southern Altaians, suggesting that perhaps females were more likely to bridge the genetic divide between the two populations.
“Subtle differences here both reflect the Altaians themselves ? the differentiation among those groups ? and allow us to try to point to an area where some of these precursors of American Indian lineages may have arisen,” Schurr said.
Moving forward, Schurr and his team hope to continue to use molecular genetic techniques to trace the movement of peoples within Asia and into and through the Americas. They may also attempt to identify links between genetic variations and adaptive physiological responses, links that could inform biomedical research.
For example, Schurr noted that both Siberian and Native American populations “seem to be susceptible to Westernization of diet and moving away from traditional diets, but their responses in terms of blood pressure and fat metabolism and so forth actually differ.”
Using genomic approaches along with traditional physical anthropology may lend insight into the factors that govern these differences.
###
University of Pennsylvania: http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews
Thanks to University of Pennsylvania for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
This press release has been viewed 119 time(s).
salma hayek dark souls angry birds welcome sugar sugar newt gingrich coyote
CSN: $80 million later, T.O. tells GQ he’s broke
January 25, 2012, 8:22 pm
Vernon Davis hauled in the 14-yard pass deftly tucked between defenders over the middle, held on through contact and converted the game-winning touchdown to propel the 49ers to the next round of the playoffs.
It immediately triggered memory recall of Terrell Owens’ catch in the 1998 wild-card game that gave San Francisco a win over the Packers, and that was before Davis returned to the sidelines with a face masked in tears, just as T.O. did 13 years earlier.
“The Catch 2,” as it has been dubbed, was one of the highest moments of Owens’ career, but his mercurial NFL tenure has endured plenty of low points as well.
Indeed, two orthogonal forces have been at work throughout Owens’ 15-year career: His intense work ethic, and his sligthly misconstrued world perspective.
A result of his Type-A personality, the media spotlight has never been too far from Owens, and most recently it shined on his announcement to return to professional football, albeit indoor football.
Owens, 38, will join the Allen Wranglers of the Indoor Football League. The new gig will earn Owens somewhere between $250K and $500K.
?
Payday couldn’t come at a more important time for Owens, who — despite career earnings of over $80 million — told GQ magazine for their February issue that he is broke.
“I hate myself for letting this happen,” he says. “I believed that [my advisors] had my back when they said, ‘You take care of the football, and we’ll do the rest.’ And in the end, they just basically stole from me.”
Owens claims his difficult fiscal position is the result of trusting people too much. GQ reports that his financial advisers “put him in a series of risky, highly leveraged ventures.? He invested heavily in real estate and lost millions in the crash. His so-called friend siphoned hundreds of thousands of dollars from him. There were the sunk costs tied to the Alabama entertainment complex — illegal in the state — that plagued him and others (Clinton Portis and Floyd Mayweather among) sold on the get-rich-quick scheme. The final financial thorn in Owens’ side more closely resembles a four-pronged Figian brain fork — each tine representing one of his baby’s mothers; Owens pays a total of $178,400 every month in child support.
When people ask where he is, GQ says Owens texts back, “I?M IN HELL.”
That would all change with one little phone call from agent Drew Rosenhaus. True to his form, Owens has maintained his physique, and he still believes he has a few productive football seasons left.
Towards the end of last year, Owens held a private workout seeking an NFL suitor. None came. “With T.O.,” an NFL executive told GQ, “no matter how brilliant he can be on the field, the dark side is always lurking. You don’t know which T.O. you’re going to get, and no one is comfortable risking that.”
Well, the IFL Wranglers are comfortable taking that risk, and you can be sure Owens knows this will be one of his final chances to prove he can still get it done earn a professional-football-caliber paycheck.
I was a fan before I was a journalist, and my moment with T.O. came at Game 5 of the 2002 World Series. We stood side by side in the Pac Bell tunnel looking out onto Field. He took the time to take a photo and autograph my foam finger, then as we brought it in for the real deal, he said, “Let’s do this,” nodding to the field.
We did it, for that game at least, as Jeff Kent hit two blasts, Jason Schmidt struck out eight Angels and the Giants took a 3-2 lead in the series. It was a simple interaction, but it was all he needed to do to earn himself a fan for life.
Owens, who is a large reason the Yards after Catch statistic came into existence, should be a no-doubt, first-ballot hall of famer. In NFL history, he is bested only by Jerry Rice in career receiving yards and receiving touchdowns. But there is no denying his career had its fair share of pitfalls.
What do you most remember T.O. for? What is his NFL legacy? His 49ers legacy?
Nate Stuhlbarg is a web producer with CSNBayArea.com. Follow him on Twitter @StuhlbargCSN.
Source: http://www.csnbayarea.com/blog/niners-talk/post/Tough-times-for-TO?blockID=638718&feedID=2539
d c silent hill tyler hamilton tree of life aipac penelope orphan
Australian PM stumbles before angry protesters (AP)
CANBERRA, Australia ? Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard stumbled and was caught by a security guard as riot police helped her force a path through a crowd of rowdy protesters following a ceremony to mark Australia’s national day Thursday.
Some 200 supporters of indigenous rights surrounded a Canberra restaurant and banged its windows while Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott were inside officiating at an award ceremony.
Around 50 police escorted the political leaders from a side door to a car. Gillard stumbled, losing a shoe. Her personal security guard wrapped his arms around her and supported her to the waiting car, shielding her from the angry crowd.
The protesters had been demonstrating for indigenous rights nearby at the so-called Aboriginal Tent Embassy, a ramshackle collection of tents and temporary shelters in the national capital that is a center point of protests against Australia Day.
Australia Day marks the arrival of the first fleet of British colonists in Sydney on Jan. 26, 1788. Many Aborigines call it Invasion Day because the land was settled without a treaty with traditional owners.
Abbott appeared to be the target of protesters, who chanted “shame” and “racist” outside the restaurant.
The Tent Embassy celebrated its 40th anniversary on Thursday. Abbott had earlier angered indigenous activists by saying it was time the embassy “moved on.”
Gillard was unharmed and hosted another Australia Day function for foreign ambassadors at her official residence in Canberra later Thursday.
“The only thing that angers me is that it distracted from such a wonderful event,” Gillard told reporters.
“I am made of pretty tough stuff and the police did a great job,” she added.
dippin dots triumph the insult comic dog tucson weather tucson weather peyton hillis cl p cl p
Gay actors still worry that coming out will hurt careers (Reuters)
LOS ANGELES, Jan 26 (TheWrap.com) ? There’s still a celluloid closet in Hollywood.
Gay actors are far more open about their sexuality with friends and co-workers, than their agents, according to a new survey by the British trade union Equity.
Only 57 percent say that they are openly gay with their agents. Despite the success of gay and lesbian actors like Neil Patrick Harris, Jane Lynch and Ian McKellen, the indication seems to be that actors and actresses fear that their choice of roles will be affected if they come out of the closet publicly.
Rupert Everett, once eager to become the next James Bond, has for years spoken frankly the price he’s paid for being openly gay, lambasting Hollywood as “very, very conservative” in a late 2010 interview.
He said that he didn’t blame those who chose to remain in the closet, calling it “very sensible.”
McKellen, Lynch, Harris and others have made great strides for the gay community and frequently play straight people on television and in movies, but there are no A-list film stars who are openly gay. Rumors have swirled for years about the sexuality of major stars such as Jodie Foster, but so far the actress has avoided any explicit public declarations.
At this year’s Golden Globe awards, host Ricky Gervais riffed on the those rumors, and the title of Foster’s recent film, “The Beaver.”
“I haven’t seen it myself,” Gervais said. ‘I’ve spoken to a lot of guys — they haven’t seen it either, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good.”
Beyond a reticence to broadcast their sexuality, 35 percent the actors surveyed said they have experienced homophobia in their professional lives.
“I have never felt that being gay has worked against me but the finding in Equity’s own survey that just under half of all gay performers are not out to their agent in the U.K. is worrying,” Malcolm Sinclair, actor and president of Equity, said in a statement. “But then work is scarce and, whether sexuality is a barrier or not, people may just err on the side of caution. They don’t want to test the water to see if it’s all right.”
The same anxiety does not appear to exist among co-workers. Ninety four percent of those polled said they are honest about their sexuality with their fellow performers and 81 percent were out in their professional lives.
(Editing By Zorianna Kit)
mta wendys terrelle pryor stock market today tampa bay rays dow jones industrial average molly sims
Pakistan accuses Iran of killing 6 on border (AP)
QUETTA, Pakistan ? Iranian security forces on Thursday killed six Pakistani traders taking goats into Iran, a Pakistani official said.
Iranian authorities were not immediately available for comment.
The incident happened Thursday on the Iranian side of the border near the Pakistani town of Gwadar, said its deputy commissioner Abdur Rehman.
Rehman said Iranian authorities were not releasing the bodies. He gave no more details.
Earlier this month, Iranian security personnel allegedly crossed into southwest Pakistan and killed one man.
There is occasional violence along the poorly marked border, where smuggling, banditry and terrorism are rife.
The incidents do not appear to have affected Islamabad’s relations with Tehran, which are based on larger regional interests.
Pakistan’s ties with Iran have ebbed and flowed over the last 20 years, dependent largely on developments elsewhere in a turbulent region, where Iran’s archrivals Saudi Arabia and the United States have also sought influence. Sunni-Shia tensions within Pakistan have also been a factor.
Relations have been stable since the downfall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2002.
Pakistan is battling an Islamist militant insurgency along its border with Afghanistan in the northwest of the country.
Earlier Thursday, security forces killed at least 20 militants in the northwestern Kurram tribal region after coming under attack, said local government official Wajid Khan. He said 22 troops were also wounded in the attack.
The death toll could not be independently confirmed as the fighting was in a remote area off-limits to journalists.
Kurram is considered a main base for the Pakistani Taliban. Scores of insurgents are believed to hiding there after escaping military operations in the nearby tribal regions in recent years.
leonard cohen letter of resignation usgs merrill lynch boxhead zombie wars krav maga integra
Bernanke says Fed pondering further stimulus (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday the central bank was ready to offer the economy additional stimulus after it announced interest rates would likely remain near zero until at least late 2014.
The Fed also took the historic step of adopting an explicit inflation target, though Bernanke took pains to stress that officials would be flexible about reining in price growth when unemployment was too high.
The late 2014 timeframe for the first rate hike was considerably later than investors had expected and some 18 months later than the Fed had suggested last year, and the announcement prompted a rally in U.S. government bonds.
Speaking at a news conference after a two-day policy meeting, Bernanke was cautious about recent improvements in the U.S. economy and he left the door open to further Fed bond purchases.
“I don’t think we’re ready to declare that we’ve entered a new, stronger phase at this point,” Bernanke said. “If the situation continues with inflation below target and unemployment declining at a rate which is very, very slow, then … the logic of our framework says we should be looking for ways to do more.”
In response to the deepest recession in generations, the Fed slashed the overnight federal funds rate to near zero in December 2008. It has also more than tripled the size of its balance sheet to around $2.9 trillion through two separate bond purchase programs.
The policy is credited with preventing an even more devastating downturn, but it has been insufficient to bring unemployment down to levels considered normal during good economic times. Many Fed watchers expected a further round of bond buying, likely focusing on mortgage debt.
RANGE OF VIEWS
Fed officials agreed that a goal of 2 percent inflation would be in keeping with their congressional mandate of price stability. By their favorite measure, core inflation is running at about 1.7 percent.
They declined to announce a target for unemployment, saying the job market was often influenced by forces beyond their control.
In another key shift touted as part of an effort toward greater transparency, the Fed for the first time published policymakers’ projections for the appropriate path of the benchmark overnight federal funds rate.
These showed a wide range of views, from the three of 17 policymakers who said they thought rates should rise this year to two who want to hold off on any increase until 2016.
Still, the biggest concentration of estimates – five of 17 – was around 2014. The new, later expiration date for the Fed’s zero rate policy pushed stock and gold prices higher, and dragged the dollar lower.
In its announcement, the Fed repeated its view that the economy faced “significant downside risks” – an expression that has become code for the threat Europe’s debt crisis poses to the United States.
In economic forecasts accompanying the rate projections, the Fed pointed to somewhat weaker economic growth this year and next, compared with estimates published in November. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate, which hit 8.5 percent in December, was seen only coming down slowly.
Economic conditions “are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through late 2014,” the central bank said. After every previous policy meeting dating to August, the Fed had said rates were not likely to rise until mid-2013.
Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Jeffrey Lacker, an inflation hawk who rotated into a voting seat this year, dissented against the policy decision, preferring to omit the late-2014 date from the Fed’s post-meeting statement.
INFLATION NOT A WORRY
The central bank appeared more sanguine on inflation, saying prices were likely to run close to or just below their target. The statement dropped a reference that said the Fed was monitoring inflation and inflation expectations.
Aside from the 2014 rate pledge, the Fed’s statement hewed closely to its last policy pronouncement in mid-December.
It described the unemployment rate as still elevated and, in a slight shift, acknowledged a slowing in business investment.
“I think what they are seeing is that the rate of growth is not sufficient to bring down the unemployment rate,” said Brian Dolan, chief strategist at FOREX.com in Bedminster, New Jersey.
In December, the U.S. jobless rate stood at 8.5 percent, and some 13 million Americans were still actively looking for work but could not find it.
While forecasters expect the U.S. economy grew at a 3 percent annual rate in the last three months of 2011, they look for growth of just around 2 percent this year.
(Editing by Tim Ahmann and Andrea Ricci)
driving directions news 12 duke university fable 3 stevie nicks phoenix new york post
Beyonce’s Baby Is ‘So Beautiful,’ Kelly Rowland Says
‘I just stared at her,’ Rowland tells E! News about Blue Ivy Carter.
By Jocelyn Vena
Kelly Rowland
Photo: Getty Images
<P>Beyoncé and Jay-Z's little girl, Blue Ivy Carter, is already getting lots of attention from her aunties. B's Destiny's Child sister Kelly Rowland recently gushed about the nearly one-month-old, sharing what it was like to meet her for the first time. "She's absolutely beautiful!" Rowland told <a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/marc_malkin/beyonceacute_jay-zs_baby_blue_ivy_shes/288811?" target="_blank">E! News</a> about her pal's new bundle of joy. "And I say that with such a huge grin! I'm so excited. </p><div class="player-placeholder right" id="vid:725377.id:1676907" width="240" height="211"></div><p> "We all just stared at her," she added about meeting the baby for the first time. "I just stared at her. She is so beautiful." So what did she buy the baby? "That's between me and Blue," she said. "But you best believe her auntie will have her dressed to impress." That sentiment was mirrored by <a href="/news/articles/1677774/beyonce-blue-ivy-solange-in-style.jhtml">Beyoncé's little sister, Solange</a>, who had tons of adoring words for her baby niece. "This may sound awful, but I'm excited to let the baby do whatever it wants in the same way my sister's done with my son," she said. "I'm going to get her back for all those late-night popcorn sessions and just spoiling my child to no end!" While Rowland isn't talking about what she gave Blue, MTV News did recently get the scoop on the types of baby products the famous kid may have gotten from her parents' friends and family. When Andrea Edmunds, the president of PoshTots, stopped by our offices recently, she revealed that <a href="/news/articles/1677307/beyonce-jay-z-blue-ivy-carter-nursery.jhtml">Blue may been hanging out</a> in a Destiny iron cradle, angora booties and the Fantasy Coach Carriage crib. Much like her parents, <a href="/news/articles/1677163/beyonce-jay-z-baby-blue-carter-glory-song.jhtml">Blue is already a music star</a>, thanks to an appearance on her dad's track "Glory." "She was on her dad's record," Rowland laughed. "Her first feature is, like, two days old! So yeah, she's musical."</p>
Related Videos
Related Artists
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1677833/kelly-rowland-blue-ivy-carter-beautiful.jhtml
sherpa patent ku 11 ted nugent may 21st doomsday ben eager
Nokia loss tempered by Windows phone launch (AP)
HELSINKI ? Mobile phone maker Nokia Corp. on Thursday posted a fourth-quarter net loss of euro1.07 billion ($1.38 billion) as sales slumped 21 percent even as the company’s first Windows smartphones hit markets in Europe and Asia.
The loss, widened by a euro1 billion loss booked on Nokia’s navigation systems unit, compares with a profit of euro745 million in the same period a year earlier.
Nokia said net revenue ? including both its mobile phones and its network divisions ? fell from euro12.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010 to euro10 billion, with smartphone sales plunging 23 percent.
Nokia has lost its once-dominant position in the global cellphone market, with Android phones and iPhones overtaking it in the growing smartphone segment.
The Finnish company is attempting a comeback with smartphones using Microsoft’s Windows software, a struggle that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop characterized as a “war of ecosystems.”
He said Nokia has sold “well over” 1 million such devices since the launch of the Lumia line in the fourth quarter, in line with expectations.
Including other models, Nokia sold 19.6 million smartphones in the quarter, down from 28 million a year earlier. By comparison, Apple sold 37 million iPhones.
The Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 hit stores in Europe and Asia in November, while T-Mobile started offering the 710 in the U.S. in January. Nokia hopes to boost its poor presence in the U.S. with the higher-end Lumia 900, which AT&T will offer later this year.
Elop said Nokia would be shipping Lumia phones to Canada next month and China and South America during the first half of this year.
“With Lumia, our specific intent has been to establish a beachhead in this war of ecosystems, and country by country that is what we are now accomplishing,” Elop said in a conference call.
Nokia shares were up about 1.5 percent at euro4.12 ($5.33) in late trading in Helsinki.
Michael Schroeder, analyst at FIM bank in Helsinki, said markets had welcomed Elop’s comments on Lumia sales.
“It definitely alleviated concerns about a horror scenario, expected by some. Although a million is not a lot in the market, it was better than expected,” Schroeder said.
The company said it would not provide annual targets for 2012 since it was in a “year of transition” but added that it expects operating margins in the first quarter of this year to be “about break-even, ranging either above or below by approximately 2 percentage points.”
It repeated the target of cutting costs by more than euro1 billion by 2013.
Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics in London said Nokia “was not out of the woods yet,” but its quarterly result was in line with expectations.
“Nokia is not necessarily dead in the water. Profit margins were a bit higher than expected and Nokia has not lost its third position in smartphones, although it is suffering in North America and western Europe,” Mawston said.
Nokia proposed a dividend of euro0.20 per share for 2011 and said that chairman and former CEO Jorma Ollila will step down at the annual meeting in May. A nomination committee proposed board member Risto Siilasmaa as the new chairman.
The average selling price of a Nokia handset rose by euro2 from the previous quarter to euro53 but was down from euro69 a year earlier, reflecting a higher proportion of cheaper mobile phones in Nokia’s product mix.
The company also reported a 4 percent drop in sales for Nokia Siemens Networks, its joint network equipment unit with Siemens AG of Germany.
After selling four in 10 smartphones worldwide in 2010, Nokia has steadily lost market share to competitors, including Apple and Samsung. It didn’t give any market share estimates in the report Thursday, but said its net revenue fell 9 percent to euro38.6 billion in the full year 2011, with smartphone sales plunging 27 percent and total mobile phone sales down 18 percent.
Nokia, based in Espoo near the Finnish capital, employs 130,000 people ? down from more than 132,000 a year earlier.
___
Ritter reported from Stockholm.
(This version CORRECTS Updates with CEO comment, share price, details. Corrects 18 percent drop was for all mobile phones, not just low-end ones. This story is part of AP’s general news and financial services.)
ann curry nixon weather los angeles nashville predators lonely island fark citigroup stock