Espoo, Finland – Nokia sold fewer cellphones in North America in the first quarter compared to the year-ago period, but their dollar volume rose as the company shifted more sales to smartphones from feature phones.
Global consolidated operating profit fell back into the red in the quarter following a fourth-quarter operating profit that had reversed a string of six consecutive quarterly losses.
In North American, handset dollar volume rose 9 percent to 101 million Euros compared to the year-ago period despite a 33 percent unit-sales decline to 400,000 from the year-ago 600,000.
Sequentially, North American dollar volume fell 48percent from the fourth-quarter’s 196 million Euros and by 43 percent on a unit basis from the fourth-quarter’s 700,000 units.
North America was a relative bright spot for the company’s year-over-year cellphone sales, given that Nokia’s cellphone dollar volume declined in all of the company’s other global regions in the quarter. That brought global phone sales down by 32 percent to 2.89 billion Euros ($3.77 billion). Global unit sales were down 25 percent to 61.9 million units compared to the year-ago quarter.
“Net sales decreased in all regions except North America, where the increase was primarily due to our smart devices business unit,” the company said in a statement.
Worldwide, unit shipments of smartphones and other phones were down 49 percent and 21 percent, respectively, to 6.1 million and 55.8 million, with combined sales down 25 percent to 61.9 million. Of the 6.1 million smartphones sold, 5.6 million were Lumia-brand Windows phones, and 500,000 were Symbian-based smartphones, which the company is winding down.
In dollars, global sales of smartphone and other phones were down 32 percent and 31 percent, respectively, to 1.16 billion Euros ($1.52 billion) and 1.59 billion Euros ($2.08 billion).
Mobile phone operating losses shrank to 42 million Euros ($54.8 million) from the year-ago 218 million Euro ($284.5 million) loss.
Nokia’s consolidated sales, including the Nokia Siemens infrastructure business and map software, fell 20 percent to 5.9 billion Euros ($7.6 billion), and consolidated operating losses shrank to 150 million Euros ($195.7 million) from a year-ago 1.34 billion Euros ($1.75 billion).
In the fourth quarter, the company posted a consolidated operating profit of 439 million Euros, reversing a year-ago loss of 954 million Euros and interrupting a string of six consecutive quarterly losses.
