Microsoft’s efforts to get Windows Phone off the ground have never been very successful, but there’s one thing it was very good at, cheap phones. When an Android phone costs $100 we are all impressed, but back in 2013 Microsoft and Nokia turned heads with the insanely cheap Lumia 520. That little phone later proved to be one of the most popular Windows Phone devices ever, and now a developer over on XDA has hacked Android onto it and its successor.

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Ten months after Microsoft wrote-off its Nokia acquisition, the company has now announced that it is effectively out of the consumer phone business. It is cutting 1,850 jobs, and setting aside almost a billion dollars to cover the costs of exiting the business.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced plans to streamline the company’s smartphone hardware business, which will impact up to 1,850 jobs. As a result, the company will record an impairment and restructuring charge of approximately $950 million […]

“We are focusing our phone efforts where we have differentiation — with enterprises that value security, manageability and our Continuum capability, and consumers who value the same,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft.

The company recently saw its market share fall below 1%. While Microsoft is – for now – insistent that it has a future in the corporate smartphone business, the reality seems doubtful …

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Nokia Technologies announced in a press release this morning that it has signed an agreement with HMD global to build “a new generation of Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets.” Although we don’t know exactly what flavour of Android, or how heavily skinned it will be, Nokia’s announcement states that Google’s mobile OS will be powering the new devices.

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Strategy Analytics has issued its latest estimates of global mobile phone shipments, and reports that Huawei overtook Microsoft (which incorporates the Nokia-designed Lumia) last quarter to become the third-largest mobile phone vendor in the world. The company saw its shipments grow almost 50% to 30.6M units, contrasting strongly with an overall industry growth rate of just 2%.

Ken Hyers, Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “Huawei shipped 30.6 million mobile phones and captured a record 7 percent marketshare worldwide in Q2 2015. Huawei is rising fast in all regions of the world, particularly China where its 4G models, such as the Mate7, are proving wildly popular. Huawei has finally overtaken Microsoft to become the world’s third largest mobile phone vendor for the first time ever.”

The company shared some earnings results earlier this month, showing a 30% increase in revenue and claiming to be on track to hit 100M sales this year.

Samsung retained the number one slot, but saw its market share slip from 22.3% to 20.5% on disappointing Galaxy S6 sales. Samsung earlier revealed an 8% drop in profits, the fifth year running it has reported a decline in profitability …

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