Espoo, Finland – Nokia
announced its third-quarter financial results, and with it a restructuring plan
that will result in the cutting of 1,800 employees.
According to Nokia,
the company has plans to “accelerate its transformation and increase
effectiveness. The plans include simplifying operations in product creation in
Nokia’s Symbian smartphones organization, as well as Nokia’s services
organization and certain corporate functions.”
This will result
in the loss of 1,800 employees globally. Nokia said it will “renew product creation
to increase responsiveness to consumer demands and reduce time to market,
[including] expanding the use of common tools for application development,
streamlining software development, simplifying and consolidating operations,
and placing greater focus on adding value to consumers.
The firm said it
aims to bring “an integrated Ovi experience” across all of its devices instead
of the distinct end-to-end service lines it has now.
“In line with
these changes, Nokia is also streamlining certain corporate functions and
corporate research activities,” it added.
Regarding its
financial results, net sales for its third quarter reached 10.3 billion euros
($14.4 billion), up 5 percent year on year and 3 percent from the previous
quarter.
In devices and
services, net sales were 7.2 billion euros ($10.1 billion), up 4 percent year
on year, while gross margin was 29 percent, down from 30.9 percent in Q3 2009
and 30.2 percent in Q2 2010.
Net sales in the services division were 159
euros ($222.9 million), up 7 percent.
Total mobile
device volume hit 110.4 million units, up 2 percent year on year and down 1
percent from the previous quarter.
For converged
mobile devices, which includes smartphones and mobile computers, volumes
reached 26.5 million units, up 61 percent year on year and 10 percent from the
prior quarter.
Its Navteq segment
showed non-IFRS net sales of 252 million euros ($353.3 million), up 52 percent
year on year and flat from the previous quarter.
Stephen Elop, CEO,
who
joined the company last month
, said, “Some of our most recent product
launches illustrate that we have the talent, the capacity to innovate, and the
resources necessary to lead through this period of disruption. We will make
both the strategic and operational improvements necessary to ensure that we
continue to delight our customers and deliver superior financial results to our
shareholders.”
