Sales of the Nokia Lumia 900 have exceeded expectations, says AT&T retail president

[Master Devwi]

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Paul Roth, AT&T’s retail president, announced that the Nokia Lumia 900 has already exceeded the company’s expectations in spite of the challenges the phone has faced.

The Nokia Lumia 900 debuted to great fanfare at CES, winning multiple Best of Show awards. Unfortunately, the phone was launched on Easter, a day when many AT&T retail stores were closed. Soon after, a bug was discovered which prevented a limited number of devices from accessing a data connection. Nokia quickly responded with fantastic customer service, giving every single customer a $100 rebate which effectively dropped the price to free. The company must have taken a significant loss, but it managed to garner a lot of goodwill with its customers.

Facing all of these challenges, you might think that sales would be average. But the combined strength of killer hardware, the user-friendly Windows Phone OS, a dirt-cheap price tag, and a massive marketing campaign has actually propelled the Lumia 900 to the top of Amazon’s sales charts. On top of this, the cyan Lumia 900 was reportedly out of stock at many AT&T Wireless stores by Tuesday night, thanks to customers walking in and asking for the “new Nokia.”

We’ll still have to wait a while before Nokia reveals exact sales numbers—if ever—but it certainly sounds like a good start, despite what the stock market might think. What are your thoughts on Nokia’s somewhat controversial launch?

[Wall Street Journal via Pocketables]