Nokia posts $1.38B loss in 4th quarter

HELSINKI—Mobile phone maker Nokia Corp. on Thursday posted a fourth-quarter net loss of €1.07 billion ($1.38 billion) as sales slumped 21 percent even as the company’s first Windows smartphones hit markets in Europe and Asia.

The loss compares with a profit of €745 million in the same period a year earlier.

Nokia said net revenue — including both its mobile phones and its network divisions — fell from €12.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010 to €10 billion, with smartphone sales plunging 23 percent.

Nokia has lost its once-dominant position in the global cell phone market, with Android phones and iPhones overtaking it in the growing smartphone segment.

The Finnish company is attempting a comeback with phones using Microsoft’s Windows software — a struggle that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop characterized as a “war of ecoystems.”

He said Nokia has sold “well over” 1 million such devices since their launch in the fourth quarter — in line with company expectations. The Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 hit stores in Europe and Asia in November while T-Mobile started offering the 710 in the US in January.

“From this beachhead of more than 1 million Lumia devices, you will see us push forward with the sales, marketing and successive product introductions necessary to be successful,” Elop said. “We also plan to bring the Lumia series to additional markets including China and Latin America in the first half of 2012.”

The company’s shares jumped more than 5 percent to €4.28 ($5.60) on the Helsinki Stock Exchange in early afternoon trading.

The company said it would not provide annual targets for 2012 as it was in a “year of transition” but added that it expects operating margins in the first quarter of this year to be “about break-even, ranging either above or below by approximately 2 percentage points.”

It repeated the target of cutting costs by more than €1 billion by 2013.—With Ritter in Stockholm