Nokia says it will invest in 'products and experiences' that will make Nokia handsets stand out and 'available' to more consumers. As a way to stand out and differentiate Nokia handsets from the competition, Nokia wants to offer more location-based services. And in an niche of the mobile handset market that has been getting smaller, Nokia said it wants to become more competitive and profitable in the feature phone side of the industry.
To keep the electricity on and the plants humming while going through this transition, Nokia says it needs to cut expenses and it will do so by cutting head count and closing factories. The company says it will post an operating profit in its Devices and Services group ASAP. To achieve this, Nokia has a plan. The company wants to broaden the price range of Nokia Lumia devices it offers and use Windows Phone as a way to differentiate itself from the competition. In a related development, as we have told you, Nokia improved its imaging assets by acquiring part of Sweden-based Scalado. The latter has imaging technology on more than one billion devices.
"Nokia is significantly increasing its cost reduction target for devices
and services in support of the streamlined strategy announced today. With these planned actions, we believe our
devices (and) services business has a clear path to profitability. Nokia
intends to maintain its strong financial position while proceeding
aggressively with actions aimed at creating shareholder value."-CFO Timo Ihamuotila
Nokia now has a goal of cutting 2013 operating expenses down to 3 billion EUR ($3.77 million USD), a reduction of more than 1 billion EUR. Nokia already has saved itself 70 million EUR in expenses during the first quarter of this year and expects to cut another 1.6 billion EUR from expenses by the end of next year. The company has also made some changes in management that leads to Chris Weber joining the Nokia Leadership Team beginning July 1st.
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Chris Weber joins the Nokia Leadership Team |
Nokia's stock, which has dropped 40% in the last three months, bounced a bit last week on rumors of a bid for the company from Samsung. But Samsung denied that it was interested and Microsoft added that while it had taken a look at buying Nokia, it really wasn't interested at this time.
source: Nokia
