Nordea Bank has raised its rating on Nokia from "buy" to "strong buy," and set a new target price for the stock at €4. The Nordic bank also believes Nokia could reach a break-even point by the middle of this year as better availability of its Lumia 820 and 510 models should overcome fourth-quarter shipment problems, according to Street Insider.
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Nokia's Lumia 820 |
While Nokia's royalty commitments to Microsoft for its Windows Phone platform have started to exceed remaining "platform support" payments it is due from Microsoft, Nordea believes the impact will be minor given Nokia does not recognise all payments received in its P&L statement.
The bank last adjusted its rating on the handset vendor, down to "buy" from "strong buy," on Dec. 20.
Separately, market rumours indicate that Nokia is considering plans to drop Samsung as a component supplier. Apple is known, according to Apple Insider, to be pushing ahead with its efforts to reduce its dependence on Samsung. Apple is currently Samsung's second largest component customer, but the relationship has become increasingly fraught amid patent litigation between the two companies, with Apple accusing Samsung of copying its designs.
Samsung is a significant supplier of memory, processors, displays and other components to the leading handset developers, as well as now being the No. 1 seller of handsets worldwide.
For more:
- see this Street Insider article
- see this Apple Insider article
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