Leading mobile manufacturer in the World, Nokia, has registered a loss of (euro) 368 million ($523 million) in the second quarter. The company posted a profit of (euro) 227 million in the same period last year. Nokia said its revenue fell 7% to (euro) 9.3 billion from (euro) 10.0 billion last year.
Over a decade Nokia ruled the mobile industry, but things have started changing fast for Nokia. The manufacturer giant is now losing its grip substantially and its market share dropped below 30% earlier this year for the first time. Nokia is now being squeezed in the low-end market by Asian manufacturers like ZTE and in the high-end market by the makers of smartphones like the iPhone, Google Android and Blackberry devices.
It was the lower shipping volumes that reduced Nokia’s sales. Nokia shipped 20% lesser units this year compare to last year. Nokia’s smartphones also posted a 31% decrease in shipment volumes and their gross margin for Q2 went down to 25.7%
Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop is very optimistic and hopeful that Nokia will bounce back very soon with launch of some new products. He described Nokia’s challenges as “manifested in a greater than expected way” in the April-June period. Stephen Elop also said that they’ve received “optimistic” responses to their Windows Phone 7 developments. Starting this year they will do “a sequence of concentrated product launches in specific countries”.
