Good luck, Microsoft: Nokia's phone sales are down 30 percent
Nokia, at least in the form that we once knew it, is no more. The handset business has been cleaved off and sold to Microsoft, but that union isn't beginning on a happy note. In Nokia's final earnings report as an independent phone manufacturer, the outfit revealed that it isn't just feature phone sales that are dwindling, but that people are spending less on Asha and Lumia handsets too. In fact, the company's overall sales fell by 30 percent compared to the same period in 2013. Nokia blamed the lack of interest in its low-end devices by saying that the industry was in a race to the bottom, while at the top, it let out the usual refrain of "competitive industry dynamics" -- a polite way of saying that Nokia and Microsoft have been unable to topple the behemoths of Android and iOS. That's been proven with the latest Kantar figures, where it remains a long way behind the big two in both the US and China.
But what about Nokia, the company that, post-merger, is a mapping, telecoms and research outfit based in Finland? The report details that there's $2.8 billion in the bank, not counting the cash that Nokia will receive in payment for its phone business, but without a failing handset manufacturer to prop up, the picture's looking a lot rosier. In fact, Nokia's patent licensing business pulled in roughly $119 million in profit in the last three months, while HERE maps brought in $13.8 million and the networks unit adding a further $300 million. Under new CEO Rajeev Suri, the company is planning on becoming a research and mapping giant that'll feed the industry with lots of juicy tech and provide an alternative to Google's location-based data. Whatever becomes of it now, however, we'll be keeping our eyes on 'em to see how they do.
