Disappointing Q2 for Nokia, set to launch first WP7 phone this year

Disappointing Q2 for Nokia, set to launch first WP7 phone this year

Nokia just announced their Q2 financial results - sales volumes decreased and the company posted an operating loss of nearly half a billion euro. On the up side, IP royalty payments went into Nokia's pocket, to the tune of €430 million.

Net sales of the Devices & Services department of Nokia decreased 20% Year-on-Year (YoY), down to €5.5 billion. Of that, feature phones pulled in €2.55 billion (20% down YoY) and the smartphones made €2.37 billion (down 32% YoY).

The company as a whole (including Nokia-Siemens Networks and NAVTEQ) has €9.26 billion in net sales (down 7% YoY) and an operating loss of €487 million.

The Average Selling Price (ASP) remained mostly unchanged since last year's Q2 - overall it was €62 (up from €61), smartphones getting €3 pricier on average (€142 ASP for Q2 of 2011) while feature phones' ASP fell a euro to €36.

It was the lower shipping volumes that reduced sales. Nokia shipped 20% fewer devices overall (88.5 million in total, compared to 111 million for Q2 2010). The European, Asian-Pacific and Chinese markets saw significant reductions in unit volumes - about 6-8 million devices less were shipped this quarter compared to the year-ago quarter.

Nokia's smartphones aren't doing too hot, taking a 31% decrease in shipment volumes and their gross margin for Q2 2011 went down to 25.7% (from 32.2% in Q2 2010).

Nokia introduced a new platform, MeeGo, with the Nokia N9 and they've started shipping the first Symbian Anna phones this quarter plus they've started shipping the Symbian^3 handsets with Anna, but that didn't help much as there was strong pressure from competing smartphone platforms, especially in Europe and China.

Feature phone shipments fell 16% YoY. Dual-SIMs were in high demand, though those launched late in the quarter, which reduced their impact. QWERTY-packing feature phones were also strong performers.

During Q2 of 2011, Nokia outsourced Symbian's development to Accenture and 2,800 Nokia employees will transfer to Accenture in October. Also, Nokia's global workforce will be reduced by 4,000 by the end of 2012. This is all part of Nokia's cost reduction plans.

Looking to the future, CEO Stephen Elop says they've received "optimistic" responses to their Windows Phone 7 developments. Starting this year, they will do "a sequence of concentrated product launches in specific countries".

He also reaffirmed that Nokia knows how to defend its intellectual property (€430 million in royalties from unnamed companies are proof of that) and while this quarter's results were disappointing, their plans for the long term are going well

source: gsmarena.com