Nokia’s troubled turnaround continues as the company today announced its fiscal Q3 2012 results, posting a lower-than-expected loss in what it described as “a difficult quarter.” Overall revenues came in at &euro7.2 billion (about US$9.45), down 19% over the same quarter a year ago and down 4% over the previous one. This translated into a loss of €576 billion (US$755 billion). According to Nokia CEO Stephen Elop:
As we expected, Q3 was a difficult quarter in our Devices & Services business; however, we are pleased that we shifted Nokia Group to operating profitability on a non-IFRS basis.
In Q3, we continued to manage through a tough transitional quarter for our smart devices business as we shared the exciting innovation ahead with our new line of Lumia products.
In our mobile phones business, the positive consumer response to our new Asha full touch smartphones translated into strong sales. And in Q3, our mobile phones business delivered a solid quarter with sequential sales growth and improved contribution margin.
Nokia Lumia smartphone shipments fell to 2.9 million devices from 4 million the previous quarter. In North America, Nokia shipped a mere 300,000 smartphones, down from 700,000 the previous quarter. This is the first time that shipments fell since the introduction of the Lumia line. With new devices coming and the fact that current devices will not be upgraded to Windows Phone 8, customers appear to have taken a wait-and-see approach this quarter. The upcoming launch of the Nokia Lumia 820 and 920 will hopefully turn that trend around again.
Nokia’s net cash fell to €3.56 billion from €4.2 the previous quarter. With Nokia predicting that its Q4 will prove as difficult as it continues to transition to its new Windows Phone 8 Lumia devices, it will have to continue to dip into its coffers to continue operating.
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