Nokia Corporation (NOK) Shares Outperform Apple Inc. (AAPL) Shares

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Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (HEL:NOK1V) shares have outperformed shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) over the past three months, which is certainly hard for investors to believe. But the numbers certainly don’t lie.

Nokia Corporation (NOK) Shares Outperform Apple Inc. (AAPL) Shares

BGR reports that Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (HEL:NOK1V)’s stock has actually outperformed Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s stock by 60 percent. StreetInsider points out the fact that shares of Nokia are up 42 percent since the beginning of September, and shares of Apple are down at least 22 percent since then.

A look back at the performance of the two companies’ stocks gives us some additional insight into what’s happening with both of them. In six months, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (HEL:NOK1V)’s stock dropped a bit from just over $2 per share and then recovered and kept adding until it hit more than $4 per share on Monday. So basically the company’s stock has doubled in value during the second half of 2012.

Now let’s flip over to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s stock. Six months ago it was hovering just under $600 per share. It skyrocketed up to $700 per share briefly toward the end of September, but it has fallen drastically since then, even dipping below $500 per share on Monday.

So what has happened with these two companies in the last six months? Both of them have launched a new smartphone, and of course the general consensus was that the iPhone 5 would do incredibly well, while the Lumia phones probably wouldn’t compete very well because they run on Windows 8. Also Nokia as a whole has dramatically lost market share in the last couple of years.

Put simply, Nokia’s Lumia wasn’t supposed to do very well, but it has. The phone was viewed by analysts as the company’s last chance to put up a strong competitor for Apple’s iPhone. Early reports on the Lumia indicated that it was selling out in markets overseas. While some analysts chalked that up to a poor supply chain rather than real demand, others believe sales of the Lumia are going well, although Nokia itself has not released any official sales numbers. BGR speculates that the reason sales of the Lumia are going so well is because analysts have set expectations incredibly low, making it easier for Nokia to beat them.

Sales of Apple’s iPhone 5 have also gone remarkably well, even better than sales of the Lumia most analysts speculate. The tech giant reported 2 million iPhone 5s sold in China in just three days. But the main difference between these two tech companies is that no one expected Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (HEL:NOK1V) to do well. Analysts expect a lot more out of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), but they keep dropping their expectations, which keeps pushing the stock lower. Monday brought reports from several notable analysts who trimmed their price targets and downgraded the stock in some cases.

So which company is a better value? Both companies will report their earnings in January. Until we see those numbers, everything is pure speculation.

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