Nokia cuts full-year profit forecast, announces new strategy

[STOCKHOLM] Finnish telecom network equipment maker Nokia cut its full-year profit forecast on Thursday even as its quarterly underlying profit met expectations in the company's first earnings report under new chief executive Pekka Lundmark.

Nokia also announced a new strategy under which it will have four business groups: mobile networks, IP and fixed networks, cloud and network services and Nokia technologies, effective Jan 1, 2021.

The company lowered its full-year profit outlook range by 0.02 euro to a midpoint of 0.23 euro per share.

Nokia and its Nordic rival Ericsson have been gaining more customers as more telecom operators start rolling out 5G networks and China's Huawei is increasingly shunned out by several governments over security concerns.

Nokia, however, suffered a setback in the third quarter when it lost out to Samsung Electronics on a part of a contract to supply 5G equipment to Verizon.

Quarterly revenue fell 7 per cent to 5.44 billion euros (S$8.71 billion), below a consensus figure of 6.30 billion, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

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Nokia said its July-September underlying earnings were flat year-over-year at 0.05 euro per share, meeting the 0.05 euro consensus in a Refinitiv poll.

REUTERS