Nokia does better than expected
 

Former rubber boot maker Nokia has reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit thanks mostly to the fact it bought Alcatel-Lucent and slashed its costs.

Nokia and its rivals, Ericsson and Huawei, are not having a good time as telecom operators’ demand for faster 4G mobile broadband equipment has peaked, and upgrades to next-generation 5G equipment are still years away.

Fourth-quarter group earnings before interest and taxes fell 27 percent from a year ago to $1.01 billion, but about 25 percent better than the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street predicted.

The networks unit’s sales in the quarter fell 14 percent, more than expected, but its operating margin came in at 14.1 percent, ahead of a market forecast of 11.7 percent.

Nokia said that while networks sales were set to decline further this year, profitability could improve from a 2016 margin of 8.9 percent.

http://www.techeye.net/business/noki...-than-expected