Nokia's Lumia 920 Sold Out on Black Friday

November 23 may have been known as "Black Friday." But it was a very bright and boisterous day for Nokia NOK. According to Trip Chowdhry, the Managing Director of Equity Research at Global Equities Research, Nokia sold out of its flagship phone -- the Lumia 920 -- last Friday. "[The Lumia] 920 Windows 8 Phone on AT&T T was completely sold out by mid-day," Chowdhry wrote in a note to investors and reporters. He added that he was unable to get a converged view on the number of units each store received. As the world's second-largest manufacturer of mobile phones, this should not come as a great surprise to investors. But while the company performs well in emerging markets (where it can still sell a large number of feature phones), Nokia has been struggling to increase its sales of new smartphones. The Finnish manufacturer recently dropped to seventh place in worldwide smartphone sales as Samsung and Apple AAPL continue to rise. Regardless, Nokia has decided to stand by Windows. In August the company said that it would not abandon Microsoft's MSFT mobile operating system for Google's GOOG Android platform. That decision seems to have paid off. One study showed that Nokia commands 59 percent of the Windows Phone market. If the company can maintain that dominance as the platform grows, it could one day prove to be a formidable competitor to Apple and Samsung. But investors remain concerned. Over the last 12 months, Nokia shares have lost more than 34 percent of their value. Nokia has a very real chance of becoming the world's third-largest manufacturer of smartphones. Research In Motion RIMM, which all but created the smartphone market with the first BlackBerry, has spent the year dragging its feet. Instead of releasing BlackBerry 10 -- the next evolution to its mobile OS -- the company delayed its flagship product till 2013 and chose to focus on PlayBook upgrades for 2012. Investors still have faith in the firm's performance, however. Over the past three months, RIM shares have jumped nearly 70 percent. Year-to-date, the company is still down more than 25 percent. HTC (2498.TW), another Nokia rival, has had its own set of troubles. In addition to the declining revenue, HTC was reportedly not allowed to release a Windows 8 tablet when the OS launched on October 26. The Taiwan-based enterprise recently lost $40 million after OnLive closed its doors. (HTC was an investor in the company.) And while HTC had reportedly said that it would not settle its patent dispute with Apple, the company reversed its decision and settled the dispute. Terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, but HTC chief executive Peter Chou denied the claim that his company will pay Apple as much as $8 per smartphone. Year-to-date, HTC is down nearly 50 percent. Follow me @LouisBedigianBZ