Nokia holds more cash than feared despite big loss

Nokia made a slightly smaller loss than expected 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 around 80 percent 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 percent after the results. Nokia reported an adjusted loss per share of 8 euro cents, compared with the market’s average forecast of 9 euro cents, and held net cash of 4.2 billion euros, compared with the market’s estimate of 3.7 billion.

The loss was not as bad as expected

“After a seemingly endless run of bad news, these results offer a glimmer of hope for Nokia,” said Ovum analyst Nick Dillon. 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 in five jobs. 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.

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It’s fighting back with its new Lumia range phones running Microsoft software, but they have had relatively little success among consumers, who are choosing Apple’s iPhones and phones running Google’s Android software instead. Nokia sold 4 million Windows phones in the second quarter - roughly doubling from the first quarter - but still only a fraction of Apple’s expected sales of 30 million iPhones or Samsung’s 50 million smartphones.

Reuters