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STRUGGLING MOBILE PHONE maker Nokia has suffered one of its worst quarterly results ever, blaming tough competition for a huge €929 million ($1.2 billion) net loss as sales plunged, especially in the smartphone market.
The first-quarter loss compared with a net profit of €344 million in the same period last year and came as revenues slid 30 percent to €7.4 billion, Nokia Corporation said today.
Its share price tumbled more than 3.5 percent to close at €3.63 on the Helsinki Stock Exchange, even though investors had been prepared for poor results.
The Finnish company is fighting stiff competition from the likes of the iPhone and cellphone makers using Google’s popular Android software, such as Samsung Electronics Inc. and HTC of Taiwan.
It said net sales of devices crashed 40 percent to €4.2 billion, with smartphone sales down by more than half at €1.7 billion, as it failed to assert a challenge in the smartphone race with new Windows-based handsets a year after teaming up with Microsoft Corp.
It also issued a grim outlook for the second quarter, saying earnings would be “similar to, or below” those of the first quarter and that it will speed up its goal to cut costs by €1 billion by 2013.
CEO Stephen Elop described the quarter as “disappointing,” conceding that Nokia had faced “greater than expected competitive challenges.”
He said the company will get rid of noncore assets and focus on “making any necessary changes to our organization, structure or team,” but gave no details.
“We are navigating through a significant company transition in an industry environment that continues to evolve and shift quickly,” Elop said.
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they just can’t compete with Samsung… they missed the boat just like Kodak…. bad management practices
When will they bite the bullet and release an android phone?? They can’t compete with Apple or android.
A Nokia Nexus phone on the other hand could be well impressive!
Windows phone – no one wants that ugly virus ridden desktop OS. Android will kill Windows over the next decade.
never have I seen a comment explaining how little someone knows in such a limited amount of words. well done.
R. I. P Nokia
Remember the 5110 it was the first mobile phone I got. I got it in 1998 it was a great phone I dropped it off a building when I was working on a building site and it was still working perfectly I just had to put on the spare yellow back I got with it. I had hours of fun playing snake. Then I got the
Nokia 3310 in 2001 loved that phone even more put after that I started buying every different manufacturer I had an Ericsson yes people an Ericsson then I had 3 different SonyEricssons great cameras and great music players then back to Nokia again with the E63 but now I have the iPhone I’ll never go back so thanks Nokia for the memories
Nice trip down phone memory lane. Cheers.
Nokia are now the diet Dr Pepper of smartphones. Android is cleaning up on sales and iPhone is cleaning up and technology and app quality.
€10 mln a day, not bad huh? ;)
Personally I know nothing of the Management Practices at Nokia, nothing…
Nokias biggest problem is that the smart phone market is effectively a iphone or android market. simply put there is little and declining market for BBM or Windows Phone, esp as more and more corporates are supporting BYOD which is allowing even more previously blackberry or windows mobile users move to iphones or android phones.
couple that with the likes of samsung and others eating their lunch in the low cost basic handset market the future is indeed very bleak for both Nokia and Blackberry. that being siad there could still be a place for both of them within the iphone / android eco systems if they are willing and capable of making such seismic shifts in corporate strategy and probably culture.
only time will tell…….
I’d never discount Microsoft. They have the money to market something to success (they could afford to pay people to use Windows phones). And they have that massive PC installed base (which seems secure for another decade) to leverage off.
Neil,
Indeed Microsoft do have the money, however they have one major problem….they are not cool!
Yes it sounds funny or strange but HTC and Apple are the cool and in brands right now as they have lots of new stuff, Microsoft is Windows and Word and blue screen of death,
Microsoft also have another problem, they are loosing marketshare and its scaring the hell out of them, hell they are now advertising Internet Explorer on TV….why? because well they have to to stop Firefox and Chrome eating even more of their marketshare.
Its not just the residential marketshare that they are loosing either, many large corporations have now switched to Firefox because its more secure and more preferred by employee’s
Windows 8 looks nice for sure, heavily focused on touch screen. Can’t seen them catching up in the mobile market though.
Barry, there’s not much money in the browser market. Most Firefox instances are running on Windows PCs, and people have to pay decent money for Windows. Linux on desktop has not taken off as a mainstream choice, and Apple Mac is too high end for most. Everybody I know uses PCs at work. At some point that must change. But its not looking like soon.
Not good news at all
Apple….that is all!
Delighted to see the Microsoft/Elop thing is working out for them.
perhaps Windows Mobile & Mr Elop will be some of the none core assets to be disposed of
people seriously. this basically doesn’t include the sales of their biggest phone in a decade. the 900. calm down. they’ll be ok, not great but definitely survive.
I’d buy a Nokia 6310i again in the morning; best phone ever – bar none!
Having said that, I’m an apple convert since the iPhone 1 and would only look at a Nokia now if they were to switch to droid. -
If they combine all they know about phones; great design, great battery life , great product overall, with googles android then they would be onto a winner..
i agree
They used to be the market leader but couldn’t grasp that a functional yet cool and sexy phone was the only way forward. Served them right , they’ve been producing crap for 6/7 years.
The 900 is a great phone. By rights things should improve. It’s an uphill battle but they deserve to pul, through. That said, I’ll be getting an iPhone 5!
Wonder if zuckerberg is watching in the wings?
Punch up the data
have your say