Nokia, the largest mobile phone maker in the world by number of units sold, registered a net loss of 492 million euros in the second quarter, but operating profit exceeded the core activities of all estimates, propelling the company’s shares, announced Reuters.
Operating profit of base activity decreased by 41% to 391 million euros from 660 million euros in the same period of the last year.
Nokia sold 16.7 million smartphones in the period, losing first place of the top producers of smartphones to Apple, which sold in the same period 20.3 million iPhones. Nokia is offering dozens of different smartphones, while Apple only sells two types of them: iPhone 3 and 4.
Nokia sold 88.5 million mobile phones in this quarter, 20% less than recorded in the same period last year. Sales of smartphones have had a decrease of 34%, with 16.7 million units sold, as compared to 25.2 million sold last year.
Finnish company practically invented the smartphone in 1996 when it launched the first Communicator model, but failed to bring innovations in recent years to withstand the assault of rivals like Apple, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry or Samsung and other phone manufacturers with Google Android OS.
Nokia’s general manager, Stephen Elop, put all hopes of returning to the market in launching mobile smartphone with Windows Phone operating system, but they will most likely hit the market later this year.
Nokia’s share price has halved since February, when it announced its partnership with Microsoft , investors fearing that the Finnish group will lose too much market share by the launch of Windows smartphones to be able to return to leadership.
Nokia’s net sales in the second quarter decreased by 7% to 9.27 billion euros and the company recorded a net loss of 492 million euros, as opposed to a net profit of 104 million euros in the same period of last year.
In the first semester, Nokia sales climbed to 19.67 billion euros and a net profit of 279 million euros in the corresponding period of 2010 turned into a loss of 261 million euros.