“Shares of Nokia Corp. fell as much as 10% Thursday after the world’s largest maker of mobile phones reported a smaller-than-expected 25% increase in first-quarter profit and forecast the mobile-phone market to shrink in euro terms this year,” Aude Lagorce reports for Dow Jones.
“Nokia’s net profit in the three months ended March 31 improved to 1.22 billion euros, or 0.32 euro a share, from 979 million euros, or 0.25 euro a share, earned in the year-ago first quarter. The profit missed consensus forecasts calling for earnings of 1.38 billion euros, according to a survey of 29 analysts conducted by FactSet,” Lagorce reports.
“Excluding one-time costs for pensions and the closure of a plant, the latest quarter’s earnings came in at 0.38 euro a share. Sales rose 28% to 12.7 billion euros, in line with expectations,” Lagorce reports. “Nokia’s shares were last down 10% in early afternoon trading in Helsinki.”
“Analysts at Citigroup recently expressed concern about a lack of major products in the second quarter. The company has said it won’t launch a touch-screen riposte to Apple Inc. and its high-end iPhone until the second half of the year, and it’s yet to give a firm date,” Lagorce reports. “Nokia Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo on Thursday brushed off suggestions that Nokia needs to do more to fight back the foray of iPhone onto its home turf, calling it a ‘niche product.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Kallasvuo is either incapable of applying the lessons of iPod to iPhone and understanding what’s coming his way or, much more likely, he understands perfectly and, since he has no answer, is saying just what many now-defunct (if they aren’t making iPod accessories) MP3-makers said a few years ago. How many “niche” products have $100 million venture capital funds ready and waiting, exactly? Candybars and way-too-late, fake 1st generation iPhones with craptastic UI’s aren’t going to cut it from here on out, Nokia boy. This June, the bloodbath really begins, and Kallasvuo sounds like he knows it.
Of course the iPhone is a niche product: it’s only for people who want to make phone calls.
Or look at pictures. Or watch movies. Or play games. Or…
Apple has sold an estimated 300 000 iPhones in Europe according to the businessweek story that Mac+ echoed.
I mean WTF, 300k in Germany, France, UK combined in 3 months???? ehhh..that is nothing, some bloodbath we are witnessing lol, time to change your businessplan in Europe Apple?
@Mac+
You don’t get it. It’s not that simple. Having the iPhone with no LOCAL iTunes store is only half the solution. Open the iPhone and kill half it’s features?
Now thats a plan. Why didn’t Jobs think of that?
@BestOf
Except what Jobs says its 100% correct. Care to dispute that MS does mediocre, crappy products? Go ahead and post X-Box, you know the billion dollars loser and 30% failure rate. LOL
@buster
I love apple products and the mac business model works well currently, and the iphone business model works well in the US, but a model that works in one market may not in another, and the iphone has been seriously held back in europe because of the way its been sold, we often dont pay for our phones over here and because apple ask for a cut of monthly fees the contracts are poor value for money.
Obviously a lot of people have decided to wait for a 3g version over here too, well ever since it came out actually, lol
Falkirk, we “insult” Microsoft and Dell here all the time. Well … we point out their “deficiencies”, is that being “insulting”? Now, it’s true most of us in no way qualify as “sales people”, and we are “preaching to the choir”, but it doesn’t seem to hurt. Except it seems a little childish, the lengths MDN and a number of others are willing to take their petty revenge. But, it just makes THEM look … foolish? … not Apple.
As for the “bloodbath”, Apple will be cutting it close getting the predicted 10 million iPhones sold by New Years Day – even with the new software we all expect to see by then. Nokia will hit maybe 400 million, give or take a paltry 10 million or so, and isn’t all that worried about Apple’s share – what, 1% of the market? Small potatoes … even if quite profitable.
That’s just like Ballmer’s reaction
@Mac+
Apple’s first objective is to be *profitable* –and this they do very, very well. Market share has always been secondary to Apple.
“This is the first set of posts on MDN that have finally dared to question the MDN take, amen!”
lol!
this must be the second article you have ever read here if it is the first time you have seen that….
@Mac+ Apparently apple business is suckin so bad that IBM started a migration project to move over to mac computers.
Have you noticed motorola said apple cant make a phone and be successful… yet it’s becoming a big hit and motorola is selling off their phones trying to save themselves. Oh and look at Palm too…them and dell are doing about the same thing right now… postponing bankruptcy.
Also FYI, if you haven’t looked at MDN lately they posted how Apple is gaining more market share.. so that must mean they aren’t a major player in the PC world.. Oh and they run vista better than PCs…
I think you might be suffering from HeadUpAss Syndrome
@harry, what are you smoking. You sound more stoned than Ellen Feiss in the “switch to mac” commercial
I admit I’m wrong and retract all my comments for this post. Apple is earning money because its products command a premium and have a healthy margin compared to lowest common denominator white box PC makers, it is dominating the online music industry and its cellphone business is aiming for a profitable niche at the top end of the market.
@Mac+ Apparently apple business is suckin so bad that IBM started a migration project to move over to mac computers.
Have you noticed motorola said apple cant make a phone and be successful… yet it’s becoming a big hit and motorola is selling off their phones trying to save themselves. Oh and look at Palm too…them and dell are doing about the same thing right now… postponing bankruptcy.
Also FYI, if you haven’t looked at MDN lately they posted how Apple is gaining more market share.. so that must mean they aren’t a major player in the PC world.. Oh and they run vista better than PCs…
I think you might be suffering from HeadUpAss Syndrome
@harry, what are you smoking. You sound higher than Ellen Feiss
uhmm yeah minus that second post…
Funny how people always want Apple to change and be like everyone else.
I don’t own an iPhone and I am perfectly happy with US Cellular as my provider.
I like what Apple is doing to the industry and I see no need for them to change.
I said this once before, the iPod have several different lines, what if the iPhone had 2 different lines? What if you had the choice between the new one coming this summer and the present model discounted significantly representing the two lines of iPhone?
Nokia Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo is being generous. The piece of crap I-Phone isn’t even a niche product. It’s another market share challenged overpriced proprietary toy that doesn’t work in the real world from Apple.
I look forward to Microsoft Windows Mobile solutions from Nokia in the future. Buh-bye Apple.
Your potential. Our passion.™
About the shareprice: The market will hammer the price if it misses its target. Why? The market prices are based upon Nokia hitting that target. Look at Nokia’s shareprice. They are up 50% from a year ago, and that’s based upon ridiculously high earnings growth. When that earnings growth doesn’t hit that mark, then the shares reflect it.
About the MDN take: To put it in context, you have to follow all of the other companyies who have dissed Apple’s iPods and iPhones before, and where they are now. Sure, it may be harsh if you haven’t paid attention, but when you have had Dell, Creative, MS, Motorola, Palm, amongst dozens of others, dissing the Mac, the iPod and the iPhone, you feel you deserve to give it right back to them.
About Nokia’s comments: Sure, it’s harsh to marginalize the iPhone, especially since you are trying to mimic the iPhone, but I’m sure he gets asked every public meeting, what is Nokia’s response. He must be sick of it by now. I’m sure Nokia is grateful to Apple, since it uses Webkit, Apple’s contribution to open-source browsing engines, in all of its most powerful handsets.
About China: I just got back a week ago, from Shanghai, and Nokia really is dominant in that market. I suspect their margins are razor-thin, but they are grabbing share while Motorola is fumbling the ball. I walked around in the morning, before the stores were open, and every cellphone store, and there are two on every corner, had dozens of Nokia boxes sitting on pallets in front of the store, ready to be brought inside. The risk is gaining share, but becoming a commodity.
About the iPhone in China: It works great. EDGE is decent. The DSL where I was staying was slower than EDGE. 20% of the cell market in China buys handsets over $500, already. That’s over 25million. Apple doesn’t need to beat Nokia, it only needs to scoop the gravy just as it does in the US computer market.
Of course the iPhone is a niche device. SmartPhones in general are niche devices. Last year, Nokia sold almost a half of billion (that a b not an m) cell phones, most of which sold for under $100 each. Now unless a certain ego centric aging hippy living in silicon valley decides to start selling sub 100 dollar phones, then the iPhone will remain a niche product. All this aside, Apple’s insistence on keeping a Nazi like grip on the iPhone will doom it to the same niche as the Mac. When I buy something I want it to do what I want, not only what the aforementioned aging hippy wants me to be able to do and most people feel the same way. That’s why most of us use PCs and not Macs.
Apple seems to think that UI is everything. Sadly, that isn’t true and iPhone is indeed a mp3 player with a Web browser.
Hah i love it they make monster profits and shares fall. Anyways well he’s right currently iphone is a niche product while Nokia sells over 130 million phones in a 3 months…so do the math and really what the hell does it matter? Apple can do products what it does because it dosent have huge portfolio like the top players like SE, Nokia and Samsung and make as much planning as it wants for just 1 phone. Apple cant ever become major player in globall market because i dont think Apple is going to sell 50 euros phones in India.
What comes to smartphones Asia and Europe love Symbian that has over 70% market share of all smartphones so Apple wont be doing anything major for 3 years to make huge damage and you need to remember that smartphones business is growing rapidly so there’s room for others than…well Nokia. And there’s really NA centric view here(not a suprise when Apple is from USA) damage it made selling those 4-6 millions iphones it did to mobile phone companies in NA(Nokia dosen exist there so more death notes to Moto)while in Europe hype dosent exist in normal media and either has it sold anything.
It’s funny that people are dismissing Nokia’s phones as cheap low-end devices and at the same time forgetting that Nokia is the leader in the smartphone market.
That’s true buenos aires
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
N95 alone has sold over 10 millions as in Q1 Nokia sold 3 million N95’s + 7 million they announced before.
Nokia is dominating smartphone markets, but it gets forgoten so many times in these USA based blogs and forums by some reason
@kenh
You don’t have any employees, nor do you invest. You’re a wage slave just like everyone else here.
Just like Godwin’s Law, there should be a law that every forum will usually end up with a post from a delusional, jealous, lying douche about his “success”.
I would like to propose not to hold back until you earn big sum of money to order goods! You can just take the loans or just term loan and feel yourself free