In the second quarter Nokia had only 4 of the U

Nokia makes the fears in the market, and makes him her it well. The title of the Finnish giant tumbled more than 10 yesterday at the Helsinki Stock Exchange, after the announcement of an unexpected loss of 559 million euros in the third quarterthe first since the beginning of the Decade. Analysts, who expected instead a profit around EUR 367 million, - already considerably weakened from the billion euros recorded a year earlier NET - were disappointed. And beyond the profitability, it is the evolution of the business concern: the number one global mobile suffered a fall of 20 of its revenues to 9.8 billion, while the market was slightly more than 10 billion euros.

Two poorly negotiated turns

Nokia has doubly wrong. First turn poorly negotiated, that of telecom networks. The joint venture created with Siemens, Nokia Siemens Network, suffered a depreciation of 908 million euros of value because of less good than expected forecasts. "As Alcatel Lucent a year ago, Nokia spent water to bleach any goodwill goodwill of its joint venture", says Alexandre Peterc, analyst with Exane BNP Paribas. "Sales are dramatically lower than forecast," he said. Lose 20 of sales in a market that decrease of approximately 5 is not reassuring. In a context where operators reduce their spending in the networks to cope with the crisis, Nokia, Siemens left behind by the Ericsson market leader and the Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE, more aggressive commercially. Nokia has revised its forecasts for the market of networks, which should be decreased by 5 only this year compared to 10, but be in a position to take advantage of this improvement

The second slick is even more problematic because it touches the core business of Nokia, and its future: the "smartphones", or multimedia phones connected to the Internet. The Finnish giant market share fell from 41 to 35 on this highly lucrative segment in just three months! It lies yet growth, while sales of conventional telephones are in decline since the beginning of the crisis. "It's two quarters that Nokia made efforts on this segment, notes Neil Mawston, analyst at Strategy Analytics." But the N97 "smartphone" is only a timid step, a copy of which was already. It is just as good as the Palm Pre, iPhone, the BlackBerry Storm... "Nokia promises that he will reverse the trend from the fourth quarter, with several launches: the new N97, the mini N97 and N900, equipped with a Linux operating system for the first time.

Geographic issues

The problems of Nokia, which remains the world leader of "smartphones" before RIM, explained also by geography. "Nokia has dedicated too many resources to make the volume in emerging countries, loose Neil Mawston.". Besides this, the group suffers from Asian competition, and it is very low in the United States. "The United States are the largest market in the world for"smartphones", and also the market with the largest value added. In the second quarter, Nokia had only 4 of the U.S. market the "Smartphone", 51 per cent for RIM (BlackBerry) and 25 for the Apple. The Finns, whose positions are strong in Western Europe and Asia, has not enough relay to us, Verizon, ATT and Sprint Nextel operators. He was apparently as fourth generation mobile telephony (LTE) develops to 2011, to carry out a major offensive in the United States. Because, with LTE, a global standard will emerge. The multinational could thus take advantage of economies of scale associated with the production of phones that will work on the networks of many countries. But the clock is ticking.