Nokia Posts $834 Million Quarterly Loss
Finnish handset maker Nokia has posted its first quarterly loss in a decade, and it is a doozy. The company is reporting a €559 million ($834 million) loss, due to falling handset sales. Nokia stated that its smartphone market share fell from 41 percent to 35 percent over the quarter. The company took a €908 million hit due to its ill-fated Nokia Siemens Network venture.
It is easy to see why the company is putting so much into the Booklet 3G netbook launch. It no doubt realizes it had better do something that is unrelated to the phone business, where it continues to slide. Perhaps the Booklet 3G will aid Nokia in penetrating the U.S. market, something it has not been successful with thus far.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
Due to falling handset sales? Not so; it was mainly due to large writeoffs from the network side of the business (Nokia Siemens Networks). Market share is the same it was last year this time; 38%.
Smartphone share, the hot segment, did drop though.
As soon as the iPhone hit, Nokia was in serious trouble when it comes to the high-end smartphone market. Unfortunately they didn’t realize, apparently, that the ugly and clunky Symbian OS wouldn’t be able to handle the competition and needed a massive and immediate graphics refresh at the very least.
The N900 is a step sort of in the right direction but I’m not entirely certain Maemo is quite there. It’s still a nerd phone whereas the iPhone can handle both mom-and-pop users as well as hardcore nerds.
Yes, this news warmed my heart this morning. Die Nokia Die.