HELSINKI: Finnish telecom company Nokia said yesterday it returned to profit in the first quarter, despite falling revenue, just days after officially handing over its mobile division to US giant Microsoft.
Net profit for the first three months of 2014 was €108m ($150m). After completing the sale of its handset business last Friday for €5.44bn, Nokia will focus on telecommunications networks and geolocation systems, which in the same period of 2013 reported losses of €98m.
Revenue in the first quarter of 2014 dropped by 15 percent compared to a year earlier to €2.664bn, slightly under the expectations of analysts, who had forecast €2.85bn. The telecommunications networks division Nokia Networks accounts for almost 90 percent of the new company’s revenue.
Sales were down in the strategic regions of Europe (10 percent) and Asia-Pacific (12 percent), but leaped by 34 percent in China, the only country to register a rise.
In 2012, Nokia lost the mobile phone world throne to Samsung in a global battle which began when US giant Apple revolutionised the business with its iPhone in 2007. AFP
