Nokia beats market expectations
Finnish network equipment maker Nokia reported its quarterly profits fell less than expected, helped by cost cuts and the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, and said the tough global market was starting to stabilize.
Nokia and its rivals, Sweden's Ericsson and China's Huawei, have struggled lately as telecom operators' demand for faster 4G mobile broadband equipment has peaked, and upgrades to next-generation 5G equipment are still years away.
Nokia bought Franco-American Alcatel-Lucent last year to broaden its operations and is currently axing thousands of jobs as it seeks to cut 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) of annual costs by 2018.
Nokia said that while it expected the global networks market to fall around 2 percent this year, it saw opportunities in markets such as North America, India and Japan.
"We continue to expect our performance to improve in 2017 and see the potential for margin expansion in 2017 and beyond, as market conditions improve and our sales transformation programs gain further traction," Chief Executive Rajeev Suri told reporters on a conference call.
"Our plan is to make the most of the market this year, be efficient, maintain our pricing discipline, ensure our synergies happen and we get the cost reductions."
Shares in the company - which are down 24 percent from a year ago - rose 3.5 percent by 0905 GMT.
Comments