{"id":653089,"date":"2013-04-18T06:49:25","date_gmt":"2013-04-18T10:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=632123"},"modified":"2013-04-18T06:49:25","modified_gmt":"2013-04-18T10:49:25","slug":"nokia-results-treading-water-for-now-but-lumia-sales-are-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/653089","title":{"rendered":"Nokia results: treading water for now, but Lumia sales are up"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s still hard to tell how much Nokia’s fortunes have turned around. Following a surprise return to profitability<\/a> around the end of last year, the Finnish handset maker’s latest interim quarterly report<\/a> show a continuation of underlying profitability \u2013 but its shareholders are still losing money.<\/p>\n

The company’s devices and services division managed to eke out a profit of \u20ac4 million ($5.2 million) in the first quarter of 2013, if you ignore “special items” during the quarter (namely, a \u20ac72 million restructuring charge, a \u20ac27 million boost from a cartel claim settlement and a \u20ac1 million hit associated with the purchases of Novarra, MetaCarta and Motally). That’s up from a \u20ac126 million loss<\/em> in the same quarter of 2012, based on the same non-IFRS<\/a> terms. <\/p>\n

However, earnings per share were still -\u20ac0.02 for the quarter. That’s a loss of $0.03 per share, slightly better than analysts’ predictions<\/a> of a $0.05 per-share loss, and significantly better than the $0.10 per-share loss in Q1 2012.<\/p>\n

But let’s look at handset sales. <\/p>\n

Nokia sold 11.1 million smartphones in the quarter — that’s 5.6 million Lumias (up from 4.4 million in the previous quarter), 0.5 million Symbian smartphones (down from 2.2 million in the previous quarter) and 5 million Series 40-based Asha full-touch devices (down from 9.3 million in Q4 2012, which is probably a combination of seasonality and the rise of cheap Androids in the emerging markets). <\/p>\n

The average selling price of a Nokia “smart device” is up 34 percent year-on-year, from \u20ac143 to \u20ac191. This has helped the devices and services division hit underlying profitability for the second quarter in a row \u2013 overall, the group has now been profitable for an extra quarter on top of that.<\/p>\n

Here’s what CEO Stephen Elop said:<\/p>\n

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“At the highest level, we are pleased that Nokia Group achieved underlying operating profitability for the third quarter in a row. While operating in a highly competitive environment, Nokia is executing our strategy with urgency and managing our costs very well.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For the second quarter of this year, Nokia predicted a slight worsening of its devices and services operating margin from -1.5 percent to -2 percent, citing the reason as “competitive industry dynamics continuing to negatively affect the Mobile Phones and Smart Devices business units”.<\/p>\n

In short, the turnaround remains far from complete, and Nokia still has to prove itself with the Lumia range. Perhaps the large-screen Lumia smartphone rumored by the FT<\/em> on Wednesday<\/a> might help. I imagine the lower-priced Lumias<\/a> announced in February will also provide a boost.<\/p>\n

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