Nokia Corp has reported its third-quarter
net loss having widened to Euro 969 million ($1.27 billion) as revenue plunged 19 per cent and sales of its
flagship Windows Phone fell under 3 million units.
In 2011, Nokia had reported a third-quarter net loss of Euro 68 million on revenues of Euro 8.9 billion.
The struggling company said net sales dropped to Euro 7.2 billion ($9.45 billion) and gave a
grim outlook for the rest of the year , saying the fourth quarter would be "challenging ... with a lower-than-normal benefit from seasonality in volumes."
Investors, however, had been expecting an even bigger drop in sales, and sent shares in the company higher. Nokia's share price surged more than 8 per cent to Euro 2.39 ($3.14) in early afternoon trading in Helsinki.
While the loss was deeper than analysts' forecast for a Euro 610 million shortfall, sales were better than the expectations for Euro 6.99 billion.
The company said its feature phones had shown strong sales and Nokia Siemens Networks - its joint venture with Germany's Siemens AG - had seen 3 per cent revenue growth in the period.
Smartphone revenue dropped more than 50 per cent to Euro 976 million with sales its first Windows phones falling to 2.9 million units from 4 million in the second quarter of this year.
The Finnish company said it sold a total of 83 million devices in the quarter, down slightly from the previous quarter but a plunge of 22 per cent from a year earlier when it had unit sales of more than 106 million.
CEO Stephen Elop conceded that Nokia was still suffering as it shifts its operating platform from Symbian and Meego to Microsoft's Windows software.
"As we expected, the third quarter was a difficult quarter in our devices and services business. 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," Elop said.
Nokia had hoped to stem the decline in its smartphones through a partnership last year with Microsoft Corp, as it struggles against stiff competition from Apple's iPhone and devices running on Google's Android software.
"While we continue to focus on transitioning Nokia, we are determined to carefully manage our financial resources (and) improve our competitiveness," Elop said while announcing the result.
With inputs from Associated Press
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