Nokia Q4 net sales down 13 % to EUR 6715 million

NEW DELHI: Finnish network equipment maker Nokia says fourth-quarter net sales  fell 13 % year-on-year to EUR 6.715 billion.

On the other hands, Nokia's  net sales was EUR 7 719 Million, a year ago.

The company's networks revenue was down 14% to EUR 6.069 billion, and the licensing business, Nokia Technologies dropped 25% to EUR 309 million.

The equipment maker operating profit fell 27% to EUR 940 million. Similarly , the company's operating profit was at  EUR 1 279 million, a year ago.

"At the start of the year, Nokia was focused primarily on mobile networks. We ended the year as a company with a complete portfolio spanning mobile, fixed, routing, optical, stand-alone software and more; with solid opportunities to drive higher returns through expansion into new customer segments; with emerging businesses in digital health and digital media; and with greatly expanded patent and brand licensing activities," said Rajeev Suri, President and CEO at Nokia.

"Pleasingly, we saw growing customer support for Nokia's strategy. Our sales pipeline with customers beyond our traditional communication service provider base accelerated over the course of the year, we saw an increasing share of our Networks pipeline coming from opportunities covering products and services from two or more of our business groups, and the potential of cross-selling started to become a reality," he said.

"We also ended the year having successfully concluded the integration of Alcatel-Lucent faster than anticipated, allowing us to shift our full focus to cost savings, continuous improvement programs and the execution of our strategy. In terms of financial performance, we were able to deliver solid results for the full year, with profitability in our Networks business coming in at the high end of our guidance range. Our ongoing intense focus on execution, cost management and pricing discipline was critical to offset the impact of challenging market conditions over the course of the year. While I remain disappointed with our topline development in 2016, we continue to expect our performance to improve in 2017 and see the potential for margin expansion in 2017 and beyond, as market conditions improve and our sales transformation programs gain further traction," he added

"In short, we ended 2016 positioned well for the future, with well-integrated operations, a powerful end-to-end portfolio and our disciplined operating model still delivering robust results. In addition, we remain in a position of financial strength, with a strong balance sheet and the flexibility to invest in opportunities that we believe will create shareholder value," said Suri.

...