Dreams of a gold-plated Lumia 900 with sapphire accents running Windows Phone 8 are gone for good. Reports from The Financial Times this morning show that the Finnish handset maker is selling its luxury Vertu unit, which handmade some of the world’s most expensive phones at around €250,000 a piece. Unnamed sources suggest that Nokia is selling the Vertu line to private equity group Permira, according to The Verge.
The sale is rumored to be in the neighborhood of €200 million (or approximately $265 million USD), which should help Nokia out cash-wise after the company’s stock was downgraded to junk status by two different ratings agencies last week. Revenues for the Vertu line is estimated to bring in about €200 to €300 million to Nokia annually. So it looks like we won’t see our gold-plated Lumia 900 anytime soon, we’ll just have to settle for the Magenta colored device rumored to launch later this year.
[via The Verge, Reuters, Engadget, Financial Times]