Nokia 2011 results deep in red despite new Lumia devices

For all of 2011, the company posted a net loss of 1.2 billion euros (US$1.5 billion), compared to a net profit of 1.8 billion euros a year earlier, while the final quarter of the year was hammered with a 1.07-billion-euro net loss after a profit of 745 million in the same period a year earlier.

Net sales for the October-December period meanwhile slumped 21 percent year-on-year to 10 billion euros, while sales for the full year were down 9 percent at 38.66 billion euros.

The massive fall was nonetheless largely in line with, and even slightly better than analyst expectations, and Nokia's stock initially jumped nearly 6 percent after its earnings were made public.

Several analysts hinted the boost to its stock may in part have been a correction to the hammering it received earlier this week when two suppliers issued weak reports.

At the closing bell Thursday, the mobile phone giant was trading 2.66 percent higher on a Helsinki stock exchange up 2.33 percent.

Nokia Chief Executive Stephen Elop, who has been leading the company through a major restructuring, described the fourth-quarter results as “a significant step in Nokia's transformation.”

Elop, who last February announced the phasing out of Symbian as Nokia's smartphone platform in favor of a partnership with Microsoft, said he was pleased with the fourth-quarter launch of its first phones on the Microsoft platform — the Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 710 — seen as do-or-die for the company.

“We brought the new devices to market ahead of schedule, demonstrating that we are changing the clock speed of Nokia,” he said.

Nokia said it had sold “well over one million” Lumia phones since the launch in October, as it established competitive “beachheads” in Europe, Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

Nokia is depending heavily on the new phones to help maintain its ranking as the world's largest mobile phone maker as it operates in a rapidly changing landscape as RIM's BlackBerry, Apple's iPhone and handsets running Google's Android platform take growing bites out of its market share.

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