Nokia (NYSE:NOK) Solutions and Networks' significant win in China Mobile's recent TD-LTE tender put a positive spin on the vendor's third-quarter results, as did an upbeat forecast of future growth. But a slip in sales nonetheless cast a shadow on NSN's ongoing turnaround.
NSN's year-over-year net sales plummeted 24 percent to nearly $3.57 billion, with some of the decline attributed to business divestments and exits from certain contracts and countries. Even excluding those issues, net sales declined year-over-year by some 20 percent. Yet NSN's third-quarter 2013 net profit of $133.5 million represented an increase of 33 percent over the year-ago quarter.
Looking ahead, Nokia forecasted higher fourth-quarter sales for NSN and said the unit's expected adjusted profit margin will grow during the fourth quarter to around 12 percent, plus or minus 4 percentage points, from 8.4 percent in the third quarter. Article