Finnish phone maker Nokia is finally laying to rest its Symbian platform after it shipped and sold its last 500,000 mobile units using the old OS during the first quarter of 2013.

With the sales, Nokia is now using the Windows platform for its smartphones.

The death of the Symbian OS was inevitable after market share of handheld devices that use the platform shrunk to 1.8 per cent in Europe in April from 8 per cent a year ago. However, in China, 2 per cent of Nokia phones still use Symbian.

The shift of Nokia to the platform used by its competitor, Microsoft, is the result of the Finnish firm's failure to keep pace with innovations that resulted in Apple's iOS and now Google's Android to dominate the smartphone market.

The 808 Pureview, developed in 2012, was Nokia's last Symbian device which took almost more than a year to move current stocks, mainly to countries where the old OS is still popular.

"It took 22 months to get a Symbian phone out of the door. With Windows Phone, it is less than a year. We spend less time having to tinker with deep-lying code and more time on crafting elements of the experience that make a big difference, such as around photography, maps, music and apps in general," FT quoted Nokia.

For Q1 2013, Nokia sold 5.6 million Lumia phones. The Nokia Lumia 925 rolls out Wednesday, June 12, in German. The phone will also be available soon in other European markets, China, the U.S. and other countries.

The device features a 4.5-inch AMOLED display that allows the user to see vivid details even under direct sunlight and from almost any viewing angle.

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