Nokia swings to loss in quarter

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
20 October 2011 Last updated at 10:51 GMT Nokia has been slower than rivals to take advantage of the lucrative market for smartphones Mobile phone giant Nokia has said it made a loss in the third quarter as it continued to come under pressure from other phonemakers.

It swung to a net loss of 151m euros (£132m) in the three months to September, from a 322m-euro profit in the same period.

Net sales fell 13% to 9bn euros.

Nokia has lost ground to competitors such as Apple's iPhone and phones using Google's Android operating system.

Shares in the Finnish phonemaker have plunged 41% so far this year.

Nokia said it sold 16.8 million smart devices in the quarter - 38% less than the previous year.

But the volume of mobile phones Nokia sold in total rose 8% to 89.8 million - reflecting its strength in cheaper and simpler so-called "dumbphones".

'Encouraged'

The company's new range of smartphones will use Microsoft's operating system instead of Nokia's legacy Symbian software.

"I am encouraged by our progress around the first Nokia experience with Windows Phone," Nokia boss Stephen Elop said.

"We look forward to bringing the experience to consumers in select countries later this quarter."

Earlier this year, Nokia announced thousands of job cuts as part of a 1bn-euro cost-cutting programme.

In April, it said it would cut 7,000 jobs - with 3,000 of the posts being transferred to consultancy group Accenture - as part of a strategy to focus on smartphones.

"The planned changes we have initiated are difficult, but necessary in order to align the company to our strategy," Mr Elop said.

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TECHNOLOGY, Nokia Readies Linux OS for Low-end Smartphones

Nokia has underlined the importance of low-cost smartphones and now it appears that the company is developing a Linux-based OS for smartphones that will cost less than US$100 without subsidies.
The new OS is code-named "Meltemi," and the project is being led by Mary McDowell, Nokia's executive vice president in charge of mobile phones, according to sources familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The company has been hinting at plans for a reboot of its low-end smartphone portfolio. At its Connection event in Singapore Nokia said that Qt -- a Linux-compatible cross-platform application and user interface framework -- would be a good fit for lower-end devices, and before that McDowell said that Nokia needs to find a replacement for Series 40, according to Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.
"So if you put the two together, we can see where this would fit in," said Milanesi.
Series 40 is the OS Nokia today uses on its feature phones, a product segment that is going away as users want smartphones. Nokia dabbled with a Linux phone two years ago, introducing the N900 running Linux.
On the record, Nokia is keeping mum about its plans.
"Of course, we don't comment on future products or technologies. However, I can say that our Mobile Phones team has a number of exciting projects in the works that will help connect the next billion consumers to the Internet," a spokesman said via email.
Nokia choosing Windows Phone over Android has put the company in a tight spot when it comes to low-end smartphones. There is no question that Android is pushing the price of smartphones to levels that are considerably lower than that of smartphones based on Windows Phone in the near-term, which means that Nokia has a gap in its portfolio, according to Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight.
"That means Nokia either needs to scale up Series 40 and make it a more robust competitor with a smart-like experience or look at alternative options, and [Meltemi] could be one of the other options," said Wood.
Nokia can't afford to bet its entire future on Windows Phone and if it wants to remain the volume leader it needs to step up its efforts in the low-end smartphone segment, he said.
The low-end smartphone market is increasingly important and will become the largest smartphone market segment, according to Francisco Jeronimo, research manager at IDC. Sales of less expensive smartphones are already growing faster that high-end models in Western Europe and the availability of low-end smartphones will be crucial to increase sales in emerging markets, he said.
The opportunity is so big that no one can afford to ignore it, not even Apple, Jeronimo said, adding that he won't be surprised if the company releases a cheaper version of the iPhone next week.
For Nokia, a logical venue for the public launch of Meltemi would be at Nokia World in London at the end of October. The drawback is that Meltemi risks being drowned by the expected launch of Nokia's first Windows Phone, according to Wood.

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TECHNOLOGY, Nokia ships the N9, his first and last MeeGo phone

Shipping the N9, his first and last Smartphone is based on the operating system has started MeeGo Nokia, the company said on Tuesday.
MeeGo is one of the operating systems, Nokia decided to leave in February when it announced plans to use Microsoft's Windows phone as the primary operating system for smartphones. The other operating system, the Nokia nixed was Symbian.
Move four months after the announcement of Windows phone, Nokia announced the N9. It has no physical buttons and relies instead on the 3.9 inch AMOLED touch screen for navigation.
The N9 interface has three home view-applications, events and live applications. Users download applications from a Nokia store, can that be called Ovi store, the company said.
Can the phone with HSDPA (high-speed download packet access) to 14.4 1 m of bps (bits per second) or Wi-Fi Internet access. Other features include A-GPS, an 8-megapixel camera that can shoot video in 720 p and an HTML5 compatible browser, Nokia.
The N9 weighs 135 grams and is 12.1 mm thick.
The estimated retail price is €480 (US$ 650) for the version with 16 GB memory and €560 for the model that can be stored to 64 GB. The prices are before taxes or subsidies.
Even though Nokia Windows phone decided on MeeGo for their future phones, the company users leave will not decide N9, buy, the company said. It the Nokia N9 2015 at least, will support including software updates, support and service support, said a spokesman for email.
On a Nokia website, consumers in some 20 countries-including China, Russia and Portugal, but not France, Germany, United Kingdom or the USA-can be notified when the telephone is available.
Sweden, operator three hopes the first units to 6 get Oct., a spokesman said.
Nokia is expected 26 on October to its first Windows phone Nokia World Conference, beginning to start shipping before the end of the year.

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