Nokia Sales Fall 19% but Promises Big Things for 2012

Handset manufacturer Nokia

revealed Thursday that sales fell 19 percent in the second quarter. According to

, Nokia reported a loss of 38 cents per share against a loss of 12 cents per share in the year-ago period. CEO Stephen Elop said this week that Nokia has shipped four million Lumia Shartphones. "We believe the Windows Phone 8 launch will be an important catalyst for Lumia," he said. In addition, the

reported Thursday that Nokia had a prototype for an iPhone-type handset seven years before Apple

rolled out the first version. "I was heartbroken when Apple got the jump on this concept," says Frank Nuovo, Nokia's former chief designer. "When people say the iPhone as a concept, a piece of hardware, is unique, that upsets me." As an example of just one bad decision made by Nokia, the iPhone scenario sheds light on how things could have been so much different for the company. Nokia has spent $40 million on research over the past decade but has continued to lose ground. The company has a team of talented, technically-savvy people and even some visionaries, as this latest news proves. However, the tech giant has made poor decisions at vital times, and it has perhaps lacked the courage and leadership of someone like Steve Jobs. For that reason, Nokia has continued to lag behind. Things may be looking up in the coming months, as the phone distributor is claiming that it has "something amazing" coming on September 7, according to

. Nokia has kicked off a teaser campaign, putting up banners outside its shuttered Helsinki store saying, "something special is coming". Because the store is currently closed, bets can be placed on the fact that the "something special" may be a store reopening. However, a Nokia store is unlikely to generate the sort of excitement that the company seems to be banking on through advertisements. After all, Nokia isn't Apple. They missed out on that when they passed up their iPhone years ago. On Thursday, Nokia traded at about $1.85, up roughly 5.5 percent.