"If Nokia does not have more than 5 percent of the global smartphone market by the end of the first quarter 2013, alarm bells will be ringing," Mawston said.
Analysts estimate Nokia's current global smartphone market share to be some 4 percent - down from 14 percent a year ago. Meanwhile, uncertainty clouds its new venture with Microsoft.
"We're a bit in the dark here," Schroeder said. "Right now we can't really say anything about Nokia's future. Everything depends on how the new devices are received in the market."
Nokia says its Lumia 920 and 820 phones are just the beginning of a new range of Windows Phone 8 devices, but early evaluations suggest they lack the "wow" effect necessary to make a dent in the smartphone market.
Also, Windows Phone 8 lags behind in the number of third-party applications available. There are some 100,000 available. Google's and Apple's stores have six or seven times as many.
"It's a perception thing really," Mawston of Strategy Analytics said. "Like in supermarket wars, if you have a store with lots of shelves with lots of apps, then consumers will choose you over a smaller store that has a smaller offering - even if you can't use all those apps."
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