Third profit fall in a row for Nokia
NOKIA, the world’s top cell phone maker by volume, reported its third profit fall in a row and warned of a weak start to 2011 as it lost yet more ground in the smartphone market.
Nokia shares dropped 0.5 per cent yesterday to €7.75 after it said first quarter operating profit margin at its phone unit would drop to 7-10 per cent in the period January to March from 11.3 per cent last quarter, missing analyst forecasts of 10.2 per cent.
Nokia has lacked a hit smartphone since the N95, which launched in 2006 before Apple broke into the market.
Its share of the smartphone market fell to 31 per cent in the fourth quarter from 38 per cent in the previous quarter. Its sales of non-smartphones fell 10 per cent from a year ago, dropping for the second quarter in a row.