Inderes estimates Nokia shipped 3.5 to 4M Nokia N8 smartphones in Q4

Research firm Inderes has offered up some insight on the number of Nokia N8 smartphones that Nokia has shipped and compared the sales a bit to the iPhone and other smartphones on the market. The Finnish research firm says that it has been forced to reconsider calling the N8 a failure. The company estimates that in Q4, Nokia supplied as many as 4 million N8 smartphones.

The information is based on the number of N8 chips sold and search volumes rather than any official numbers from Nokia. Some of the charts in the release are in Finnish and the Google translation is sketchy at best, but the company shows how search volumes related to the iPhone and how many of the devices sold to prove a point for its methods. Inderes claims that in the same quarter Apple shipped 6.89 million iPhones.

The company also compared the N8 numbers to the shipments for the Samsung Galaxy S and the HTC Desire. The N8 and Desire sold in very similar numbers according to the research firm. One of the key areas for the N8 is India where the iPhone has not sold well. The big selling point of the N8 according to the firm is the 12MP camera.