Nokia reports 8% decline in annual sales

The Finnish telecommunications corporation Nokia has reported an 8 percent year-on-year decline in sales for the year 2023, with sales totaling 22.3 billion euros, reported Xinhua.

Net sales in the fourth quarter (Q4) showed a 21 percent year-on-year decline, amounting to 5.7 billion euros, said the company on Thursday.

Although profitability exceeded analysts' expectations, Nokia's stock rose by 7 percent in early Helsinki trading, reaching 3.37 euros.

Nokia cited slow decision-making by customers and high-interest rates as the reasons behind this development. However, the company's CEO Pekka Lundmark described the result as "a resilient performance" considering the challenging environment and lower contribution from the high-margin patent licensing business.

Lundmark said that the challenging environment of 2023 is expected to continue during the first half of 2024, particularly in the first quarter.

This week, Nokia reported a breakthrough after reaching an agreement with the Chinese producer Oppo to license the production of mobile phones. Nokia said that talks with another producer, Vivo, are still ongoing.

In December 2023, Nokia experienced a major setback in the United States, when the U.S. operator AT&T entered a deal with the Swedish company Ericsson on the development of open networks.