SINGAPORE — Since Microsoft announced in September it had decided to purchase Nokia’s Devices and Services division — the Finnish company’s handset business — people have wondered what was next for the once-dominant phone maker and whether it could recapture its former glory.

While Nokia’s phone division reported an operating loss of €86 million (S$149 million) in the third quarter, there are enough encouraging signs to suggest that things might be swinging in the company’s direction, said Mr Chris Weber, Nokia’s Executive Vice-President of Global Sales and Marketing.

“We’ve seen really good progress, and the number of devices out there has grown significantly,” said Mr Weber in an interview yesterday at the Nokia office in Singapore. “We saw growth in almost every region.”

Nokia shipped 8.8 million Lumia phones in the third quarter, up from 7.4 million in the preceding three months. While the bulk of those were lower-end models, the increase may be giving Nokia the critical mass needed to make the Windows Phone platform an attractive proposition for app developers.

“Developers care about distribution,” said Mr Weber.

More Windows devices in circulation makes the platform more appealing to developers, who will then make more apps, which in turn should attract even more buyers, said Mr Weber, who likened the process to a “flywheel”.

Still, with only around 190,000 offerings, the Windows Phone store still lags far behind the one million or so apps available in both Google’s and Apple’s stores.

Where Nokia may have made significant progress, though, is in the bigger, more popular apps that many users see as a must-have when deciding which phone to buy. One example would be photo-sharing app Instagram, which was finally launched for Windows phones only a month ago.

“You have to have … the volume, scale and ecosystem (to attract developers and users),” said Mr Weber. “And for the first time, we have a full portfolio.”

Also citing the presence of other popular apps like Vine, WeChat, Line and WhatsApp, Mr Weber said the Windows Phone Store now has enough of the major apps to allow Nokia to focus on other features which it can highlight to make headway against its rivals.

“The app store now allows us to be on parity and this allows us to tell the differential story,” said Mr Weber.

Nokia’s key thrust to differentiate its devices from other smartphones is in imaging. Nokia famously wowed the tech world by uncovering a 41-mega-pixel camera for the smartphone, and they have most recently included that technology in the high-end Lumia 1020.

“Imaging is a huge differential for us,” said Mr Weber.

He also mentioned the free music streaming service Mix Radio, location-based functions using Nokia’s Here map service and the Windows Phone’s Live Tile experience as other key differences, but he emphasised imaging as being perhaps the biggest area on which Nokia is focusing.

“We’re just scratching the surface (of what we can do with imaging),” he said. “We’re just getting started ... it can blow people away.”

One key feature could be Storyteller, which works as a way to collate photos and videos in a thematic way and is currently available in beta. It allows users to share not only a photo, but an entire experience or journey with integrated mapping and captions, said Mr Weber. An SMS link or a QR code can then be sent to friends who will be able to see what is on the screen of the sender’s Lumia on their own device.

To exploit these differences, Mr Weber said, Nokia is aiming to make significant headway in Asia, with an estimated US$8 billion (S$10.04 billion) market spread across seven major countries: Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines.

Nokia is already taking steps to focus on this region, such as by launching the Lumia 525 first in Singapore.

The company has also identified the phablet as having huge potential in Asia and launched the 6-inch Lumia 1520 first in Singapore and Hong Kong.

But while Nokia is aiming to make inroads into the Asian smartphone and phablet market, Nokia has yet to make an entrance into the tablet space in Asia: Nokia’s own tablet, the Lumia 2520, is yet to be released in Singapore and Mr Weber says there are currently no plans to do so.

Meanwhile, despite his upbeat outlook, Mr Weber said the company will need to continue to push hard if it wants to continue to make progress and change some people’s perception that Nokia is a spent force.

“We still have a lot to do,” said Mr Weber. “Competition is stiff.”