The upper-end segment of smartphones costing more than $250 grew by only 23 percent during the same period. Nokia, the global market leader in smartphones as late as 2007 before Apple produced its first iPhone, has done poorly in the upper segment of smartphones. It trailed the likes of BlackBerry, LG and Motorola with a roughly 4 percent market share in the fourth quarter, according to IDC. Huawei, No. 3, and ZTE, No. 5, each sold more than twice as many smartphones as Nokia.

This year, for the first time, more consumers around the world will buy a smartphone than a simple, basic cellphone, according to IDC.

Mr. Elop said Nokia was committed to making some of Lumia’s unique features, like digital lenses that allow users to enhance their own photos, available throughout the entire Lumia lineup, instead of reserving the most advanced features for the most expensive handsets.

The Nokia-Microsoft alliance that was announced two years ago, Mr. Elop said, is gaining momentum. He dismissed the possibility that the company would eventually abandon its software partnership with Microsoft and adopt another operating system, like the Android system made by Google.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that that was the right decision,” Mr. Elop said about choosing Microsoft. The alliance with Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, has set Nokia apart from handset makers relying on Android, Mr. Elop said, preserving an identity and edge for Nokia and its products.

With the Lumia line of smartphones expanding, Nokia can increasingly sell Microsoft phones to businesses, which may already be reliant on Microsoft Windows and e-mail services in their operations, Mr. Elop said.

“Being able to bring those all together, I think, is a very powerful force,” he said. “And it’s something that’s just beginning.”

Nokia sold 4.4 million Lumia smartphones in the fourth quarter, up from 2.9 million in the third quarter. Mr. Elop declined to say how Lumia sales had developed in the first two months of the year. But he suggested that the three new handsets introduced over the last three months would help sustain sales momentum.