Mobile phone maker Nokia announced its latest quarterly financial results this morning and the numbers continue to show a company losing both market share and money. PCWorld reports that the company recorded a loss of 487 million euros for the quarter that ended on June 30. That number compares to a profit of 295 million euros for the same period a year ago. It"s the first quarterly lost for the company in 18 months.
Overall, Nokia sold 88.5 million mobile phones in the quarter. That"s 20 percent lower than the same period a year ago and also lower than the 96 million unit sales number that analysts had predicted. CNBC.com reports that Nokia sold 16.7 million smartphones last quarter which now makes the company the number two seller of smartphones in the world Apple announced earlier this week that it had sold a worldwide total of 20.3 million units of its iPhone product in the past quarter.
Nokia"s CEO Stephen Elop said today via a press release that while the latest financial numbers "were clearly disappointing, we are executing well on the initiatives that are most important to our longer term competitiveness." He claims that Nokia"s prospects will improve in the second half of 2011. Part of Nokia"s strategy is to begin launching a new set of smartphones that will be based on Microsoft"s Windows Phone 7 operating system. In today"s press release Elop said, " ... those who already have viewed our early Windows Phone work are very optimistic about the devices Nokia will bring to market and about the long-term opportunities."