Nokia has revealed, hidden away within its quarterly financial report for Q4 2011, that it has received a "platform support payment" of $250 million from Microsoft.

Nokia does point out that it pays royalty fees to Microsoft but also notes that this payment is the first of many.

In fact, the amount of money passing hands in royalties from one direction and these payments in the other is "expected to measure in the billions of US dollars."

On the beaches

In case your maths head isn't quite screwed on, that means an annual fee of around $1 billion seem likely to be heading Nokia's way.

Its Lumia series of phones haven't turned the firm's decline quite yet, though it expects a bumper year ahead, in regards to the promise of the American market's adoption of its upcoming Lumia 900.

"With Lumia, we have demonstrated that we belong on the field," stated CEO Stephen Elop in the report.

"Our specific intent has been to establish a beachhead in this war of ecosystems, and country by country that is what we are now accomplishing. To date we have sold well over 1 million Lumia devices.

"From this beachhead of more than 1 million Lumia devices, you will see us push forward with the sales, marketing and successive product introductions necessary to be successful."

[source: Nokia, via SlashGear]