Nokia's Beats Estimates On Q3 2011 Earnings

Nokia shares were on the rise this morning, why? Because Nokia had a great quarter? Not precisely, but they also didn't have a bad quarter. And as Wall St. hawks know, beating expectations, even if that means simply doing less worse than analysts expected, is good news. Nokia saw their net sales drop 13% year-over-year, and operating profit fell 60% in the past year. But Q3 wasn't nearly as bad as Q2, and that's cause for some celebration. The overall Q3 loss was 68 million Euros, but the company still has 5.1 billion Euros in their savings account.


The company still sold a ton of phones. They registered net sales of 9 billion Euros, and Stephen Elop (CEO) had this to say:

"I am encouraged by the progress we made during Q3, while noting that there are still many important steps ahead in our journey of transformation. With each step, you will see us methodically implement our strategy, pursuing steady improvement through a period that has known transition risks, while also dealing with the various unexpected ups and downs that typify the dynamic nature of our industry. During the third quarter, we continued to take the action necessary to drive the structural changes required for Nokia’s long-term success.

Our results in Q3 indicate that our sales execution and channel inventory situation have improved. From a product standpoint, our overall Mobile Phones portfolio performed well. We shipped approximately 18 million dual SIM devices in Q3, and in markets such as India where dual SIM is pervasive, we gained market share. We also strengthened our Smart Devices line up in Q3, with the launch of our first smartphones running Symbian Belle, which improves the user experience and strengthens the competitiveness of our product portfolio.

Additionally, I am encouraged by our progress around the first Nokia experience with Windows Phone, and we look forward to bringing the experience to consumers in select countries later this quarter. We then intend to systematically increase the number of countries and launch partners during the course of 2012.

To position Nokia for the future, we are driving fundamental changes in how we operate. In addition to the changes announced in April, in Q3 we announced plans for structural changes in manufacturing, Location & Commerce and supporting functions. The planned changes we have initiated are difficult but necessary in order to align the company to our strategy.

In summary, in Q3 we started to see signs of early improvement in many areas, but we must continue to focus on consistent progress so that we can move Nokia through the transformation and deliver superior results to our shareholders."

This may very well be the last bad quarter for a while for Nokia, if the Windows Phone bet pays off. Nokia World is said to be bringing quite a few WP7-based phones, and if they can ship by Christmas, we could be in for quite the treat.