Nokia incurs a loss of €59m in Q1

Telecommunication giant Nokia on Thursday reported a 59 million euro loss (non-IFRS) in the first quarter this year.

The result shocked business observers as investor advisers' expectations reported by business daily Kauppalehti had averaged a 298 million profit. Last year the same category in the Q1 report showed 239 million euros in the black.

Even though Nokia had warned in advance that development would be modest, the value of the Nokia stock at the Helsinki market declined by 9 percent in the morning hours trading.

Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri was quoted by a Finnish language business daily Kauppalehti as saying in a conference call with the media that Nokia had lost valuable 5G network deals.

Another reason is that some Nokia products had not been yet mature for commercial 5G deliveries.

Suri predicted a turn for the better during the second quarter this year. Nokia has now 36 commercial 5G contracts. On the auto industry sector, Nokia entered deals with Audi and Porsche.

As positive developments Suri gave the 12 percent growth in the IP internet networks unit and 7 percent growth in optical networks.

Nokia reported now its software business separately for the first time, but it had no comparison data.

Investors had been keen on getting information about the way the 5G market shares. Both Sweden-based Ericsson and China-based Huawei have reported strong growth this year.