SMARTPHONES:Nokia made a slightly smaller than expected loss and ended the second quarter with more cash than investors feared, despite losing market share to Apple and Samsung Electronics.
Nokia shares, which have lost about 80 per cent since February 2011, when the company decided to drop its own smartphone software in favour of the largely untried Windows operating system, were up 10 per cent after the results. Nokia reported an adjusted loss per share of €0.08, compared with the market’s average forecast of €0.09, and held net cash of €4.2 billion.
In the three months to June, all three major credit ratings agencies cut Nokia bonds to “junk”, while the company warned twice on profits and said it planned to cut one job in five.
Once the world’s dominant mobile phone maker, Nokia was late to embrace smartphones and has lost out to Apple and Samsung in the most profitable part of the market. It sold 4 million Windows phones in the second quarter – roughly doubling from the first quarter – still a fraction of Apple’s expected sales of 30 million iPhones or Samsung’s 50 million smartphones.
