Troubled but still world’s largest mobile handset maker Nokia announced its third fiscal quarter result which comes to many as surprise but surely a good sign for company as well as investors. Compare to loss of aprox USD 700 million from the same quarter in last year, Nokia has posted a strong net profit of USD 733 million this year. However, the good news also carries disappointments for employees as company decides to cut down 1,800 employees to “simplify operations” specifically for Symbian Smartphone operations as claimed by company.
Nokia is also planning change-over to its integrated line of Ovi store which is currently available to complete range of handsets across the globe, rather than providing end-to-end line for particular services.
Company is currently going through some of the tough time in the history of its existence. Constant growing competition from Android, Apple and RIM is already keeping Nokia on its toes. The recent change in leadership is an example of such situation.
“Changes impacting personnel are always difficult,” said Nokia executive VP of human resources Juha Äkräs, in a statement. “The announcement today is the result of careful evaluation and planning; the plans have now been reviewed and endorsed by the new management.”
Despite the strong third quarter result, Nokia is expecting to see further improvement from the result of forth quarter. Recent launch of Nokia N8 and C3, company’s recent bet in smartphone for business users and cost constraint users subsequently, will help to regain its undisputed leadership in mobile handset market. Company has also lined up few – much anticipated – business smartphones like E7 which are scheduled to be launch in this quarter.
However, things are not proving to be faithful for Nokia – at least for now. Recent play down of MeeGo by Intel is a latest setback for the company. Nokia has sensed the strong need of a transformed mobile OS to beat Android, iOS and RIM mobile OS. To stay afloat in the new transformed mobile OS market Intel and Nokia are jointly creating MeeGo – a new mobile OS – meant for smartphones and tablet devices. As a result, Nokia says it will no longer refer to monolithic Symbian releases like Symbian^3 and Symbian^4: instead, the platform will be developed in a process of “continuous evolution.”
The unexpected departure of Symbian Foundation’s Chief is another recent setback for the Nokia in a row. As a result Symbian platform has suffered major defections from handset makers like Sony Ericsson, LG, and Samsung. Undoubtedly, Nokia is betting high with upcoming MeeGo platform which will hit the market in early 2011 as per Intel. If it witnesses the success, as expected by Nokia, it will put back the company again in front and middle of the mobile and OS market. Interestingly by then, iPhone will have been on the market for nearly four years and the third version of Android –Android 3.0 will be in the market to challenge the new born baby.
