Nokia gains profits in Q2, core business recovers

Nokia achieved an increased turnover and made a remarkable profit during the second quarter of 2015, the Finnish network technologies company said.

Compared with the same period in 2014, the 2015 April-June turnover stood at 3.2 billion euros, which was an increase of nine percent. The profit was now 352 million euros, whereas in 2014 it had been negative.

Among the three major business portfolios, namely the networks, technologies and the HERE map services, networks provided 313 million euros out of the total of 521 operating profit.

Mikael Rautanen, an analyst of Nokia from the analysis firm Inderes, told Finnish national radio Yle that the increase in the turnover could be attributed to changes in the exchange rates that were advantageous to Nokia.

The good profit result showed a recovery in the core business of Nokia, the network services.

Rautanen said the market situation was not easy, but Nokia was able to improve its profitability more than its main competitor Ericsson.

"In the future the programmes that administer the networks bring the money, not that much the sales of hardware," he said.

Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri said the company's global services segment attained one of its best results ever; sales of programming grew remarkably, while the impact of new strategic agreements declined.

The current annual turnover of Nokia is around 15 billion euro and following the completion of the Alcatel-Lucent deal it will be around 30 billion.

Rautanen said that uncertainty associated with the upcoming merger has been reflected in the price of the Nokia stock. It was 7.5 euros at the time of the announcement and has since declined to six euros.

On Thursday, following the announcement of Q2 results, the share value increased eight percent.