According to news reports, the Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia is suffering one of its worst quarterly results ever, blaming tough competition for a huge EUR 929 million net loss as sales plunged, especially in the Smartphone market in China.
Compared to January through March 2011, Nokia plunged 70 percent on its handsets in China this past quarter of 2012.
The first-quarter loss compared with a net profit of EUR 344 million in the same period last year and came as revenues slid 30 percent to EUR 7.4 billion, Nokia Corp said Thursday 19 April.
Its share price tumbled more than 3.5 percent to close at EUR 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 Apple Inc.’s iPhone and cellphone makers using Google Inc.’s popular Android software — such as Samsung Electronics Inc. and HTC of Taiwan.
It said net sales of devices crashed 40 percent to EUR 4.2 billion, with smartphone sales down by more than half at EUR 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 EUR one billion by 2013.
CEO Stephen Elop described the quarter as “disappointing,” conceding that Nokia had faced “greater than expected competitive challenges.”
