The Facebook IPO is expected to usher in a day of massive trading volumes on the markets, and some believe that might translate to a lift for some tech stocks. But one that could really use some help has just been served another course of bad press: Nokia is apparently burning through its cash reserves — fast.

The company, for years the biggest mobile phone maker in the world, has fallen on very tough times, as competition from companies like Samsung, Apple and a barrage of inexpensive device makers, have translated into declines in sales, market share and profitability.

That’s now translating into what has been identified as another issue: the burning of the cash pile. In the last five quarters, Nokia has burned through €2.1 billion ($2.7 billion) from its cash reserves. Analysts polled by Reuters on average believe that at the rate Nokia is going, it will go through another €2 billion ($2.5 billion) in the next three quarters, with the total current cash pile of €4.9 billion ($6 billion) gone within two years.

To put that in some context, in 2007 Nokia had cash reserves of €10 billion in 2007 ($12.7 billion). That points to its cash pile burn accelerating — a result of the fact that the company has been trying to transform its business, which requires investment, while at the same time seeing massive sales drops:

In the company’s last quarterly earnings, reported April 18, Nokia reported that overall revenues were down by $4 billion (€3.4 billion) to $9.7 billion (€7.4 billion). Smartphones, the core of Nokia’s fightback strategy, declined by more than 50 percent both in revenues and unit sales, and the company saw a 40 percent drop in revenues from devices, its biggest business, with sales in those now at €4.2 billion. Nokia also swung to an operating loss of $1.7 billion, blaming the double-whammy of competition from Apple/Google as well as restructuring costs, as the company has pushed to put a stronger emphasis on its new line of smartphones in a race to gain back its rapidly disappearing market share in the higher-margin end of the smartphone market.

Nokia currently has two tranches of credit bonds outstanding: bonds of €1.25 billion euros at 5.5 percent maturing in 2014 and €500 million of notes at 6.75 percent due in 2019. These have now reached the lowest investment grade status at S&P, Fitch and Moody’s with negative outlook.

“I would not rule out the possibility of Nokia being downgraded further,” Nancy Utterback, a credit strategist at Aviva Investors, told Reuters. “The company is in a negative spiral that will be hard to reverse.”

Reuters does also point out some bright spots. The company is expected to sell 20 million of its new Windows Phone-based smartphones this year, and 46 million next year. And if the company continues on its cost-reducing course, it could end 2012 with €2.8 billion ($3.6 billion) in net cash this year.

And there is another possibility that we will likely see raised more and more: a “white knight” in the form of a Microsoft acquisition. The software company  is already heavily entwined with Nokia over the use of the Windows Phone OS — paying Nokia $1 billion annually for this — a relationship that could well deepen if Nokia’s problems continue to grow.

This Nokia Lumia 850 is not real. It’s just a concept. But I would be proud to carry that phone in my pocket if it was real.

The concept comes by way of The Nokia Blog, a fan site that found the concept made by Luxembourgish designer, BrianMFB. The 850, that once again is just a mockup, shows a slimmed down Lumia 800 that still regains a lot of the original character. The backside has tappered edges and flush mounted side buttons. The screen is a modest 3.8-inch as a 950 would likely have a larger screen.

Nokia hit the 800 and 900 out of the park. Even Siri points out that the 900 is current the best cell phone on the market. Nokia will need an equally impressive showing to succeed the current lineup. However, if Nokia is smart, and yesterday’s rap video speaks against that thought, the company would let the current generation sit on the market for awhile. The 800/900 are amazing phones and do not need replacing anytime soon. Nokia’s money would be better spent in stronger marketing and bringing the phone to other carriers like Verizon.

There are still some big question marks over what Nokia plans to do in tablets — a market where it is now possibly the only major smartphone maker yet to make a device — but at least Nokia is moving ahead with the launch of tablet-friendly services. Today, it said it would begin the global roll-out of Nokia Reading, a Windows Phone app originally announced back in February for reading e-books on a Lumia device.

The company says that initial countries that will get the app are France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and the UK, with others following later this year. It is compatible with all four Lumia models: the 900, 800, 710 and 610.

Having a decent reading app on a smartphone is basically table stakes at the moment, so in that sense this app probably should have come as standard with the phones when they first started to get rolled out last year.

Nokia is perhaps hoping that its international approach will make up for launching it only now: the app will launch with a selection of titles in local languages (French, Germany, Italian, Russian, Spanish in addition to English). This is in contrast to, say, Amazon, which has taken its time in rolling out versions of the Kindle and its Kindle bookstore in languages outside of English. Indeed, as Nokia points out in a blog post on Reading, “While eBooks are becoming a common sight in countries like the US and the UK, they are still in their infancy – or basically unavailable – in many parts of the world.”

Nokia doesn’t give specific numbers for how many books it will offer in its local-language catalogues, except to note that there will be “thousands” of international classics available for free (as they are on Amazon’s Kindle store), as well as a “wide range” of local titles available in addition to translations of best-selling English-language titles. These will be include The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; One Day; and The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, and the list is growing, Nokia says.

Reading is being powered by OverDrive, also Amazon’s Kindle Library Lending partner. We were originally tipped this information, and now Nokia has confirmed it: “Overdrive are the main global aggregator, then we work with other local aggregators and deliver the service over our own backend,” a Nokia spokesperson told TechCrunch.

The app is also featuring some discoverability elements. Similar to how Nokia steers people to certain apps through its “Collection” widget, in Reading the company is also pointing people to Top eBooks and New Releases, which will be categorized by genres. There is also a predictive search function in the app. And to try to make the process of reading on a smartphone a little less onerous, Nokia has also worked in features like text re-sizing and using fonts that are especially small-screen friendly.

Nokia says that other enhancements like audiobook functionality and a News Stream reading service to aggregate new feeds a la Flipboard are “already in the pipeline” and will appear as free updates.

“We have built a reading service that focuses on how people read on their mobiles,” Nokia’s product manager for the Reading app, Rhidian Williams, wrote in the post. “It’s a service that recognises that people read different kinds of content at different times of the day, and it brings this content together in a reading hub that will encourage readers to come back to it frequently.”

The big question is how and if the Barnes & Noble JV with Microsoft — which sees, among other things, Microsoft paying B&N a fee to develop e-books content specifically for Windows 8 and Microsoft taking an equity stake in B&N’s Nook tablet business — will also have an impact on what Nokia does in e-reading devices and e-books content.

So far that kind of detail has not been made public, and Nokia has declined to comment on how that relationship between Microsoft and B&N will impact its own business.

Windows Phone is way behind Android and iOS when it comes to apps — only about 80,000 apps compared to 500,000-600,000 each at the other two — too far behind to possibly ever catch up in actual numbers any time soon. So it makes sense that Windows Phone players cherry pick to ensure the best and most popular apps out there are on their platform. Today Nokia did just that:  it announced deals with a raft of companies, including Box, Groupon, EA, ESPN, Rovio and more to add their apps exclusively to Windows Phone for Nokia’s new range of Lumia devices.

Announced at the CTIA event, the deals are an instance of Nokia leveraging the Windows Phone platform to offer content exclusive to users of its devices: services like Nokia Maps get rolled out to the rest of the Windows Phone footprint.

“We are focused on delivering great, locally relevant apps, and importantly, those which offer unique, exclusive and original experiences,” Marco Argenti, SVP, Nokia Developer Experience, said in a statement.

The move is a significant one for Nokia to take, as it looks to grow the number of sales of the device and demonstrate that it is not just another OEM on the platform but bringing its own unique value to the proposition.

Apps, of course, are a huge part of what drives consumers to use one smartphone over another. Just yesterday, we revealed that Google had passed the 15 billion download mark for apps on its Android platform; Apple has now seen downloads of 25 billion.

Among the apps that are included in today’s announcement, made at CTIA, are several under exclusive terms. They include several in the sport category, such as the PGA Tour app (12 month exclusive) and a variety of ESPN apps (exclusive to May 2013). Additionally, there is a Groupon app (exclusive for six months); the Tripdots travel app (three month exclusive); and the AOL Entertainment Hub (six month exclusive).

In addition, Nokia notes that Rovio has assembled a dedicated team of developers who will be making apps for Lumia devices specifically and the WP platform more generally — a quick recovery after the debacle the other month when an executive dismissed the Windows Phone platform for future games, Angry Birds or otherwise.

It sounds from Nokia’s press release that it is actually investing money in Rovio’s developer effort. Some of that will be for exclusive content as well:

“Nokia and Rovio will partner to develop innovative new consumer products and content exclusively for Nokia Lumia smartphones, alongside cross platform multi-channel integrated marketing initiatives,” the company notes in its statement.

It looks like there may be a similar arrangement in place with EA as well, covering a variety of games.

Other apps announced today include apps for Time, Newsweek, PayPal and Box — all of these with no Lumia exclusivity, it appears.

What we will still have to see is how and if the Barnes & Noble deal that Microsoft announced last week will play out for other players in its mobile ecosystem: will it mean more content — more exclusive content? We asked Nokia for its take on that and it declined to comment.

The Lumia devices are now on sale in 48 different markets; up to now Nokia has sold some two million Lumia handsets, according to its latest quarterly earnings.

Nokia may be busy suing the likes of RIM, HTC, and Viewsonic over the infringement of a long list of wireless patents, but the Finnish company should watch their backs — now they’re the target of a class-action lawsuit from a shareholder because their plan to embrace to Windows Phone hasn’t yielded the right results.

But are they concerned about it? Not if their official statement on the situation is any indication — Nokia has just reached out to say that they are “reviewing the allegations contained in the complaint and believes that they are without merit. Nokia will defend itself against the complaint.”

If you hadn’t yet heard the details, plaintiff Robert Chmielinski filed the suit yesterday [PDF] in U.S. District Court in New York, in which he alleges that Nokia knowingly misrepresented how well the transition to Windows Phone was playing out to their investors. More specifically, it says that “defendants told investors that Nokia’s conversion to a Windows platform would halt its deteriorating position in the smartphone market. It did not.”

The complaint goes on to point out that despite all of the positive spin Nokia CEO Stephen Elop and CFO Timo Ihamuotila put on the company’s various Lumia launches, those claims fell apart when the company announced on April 11 that their Q1 2012 financials would be much weaker than expected. That announcement was followed by pronounced dip in Nokia’s stock price, which affected “thousands” of Nokia’s shareholders.

Oh, but there’s more:

“[Nokia] also disclosed a glitch in its newest Windows offering – the Lumia 900. Nokia had to immediately offer customers an automatic $100, making the phone essentially free.”

For what it’s worth, Nokia also handled those Lumia 900 connectivity issues much better than I’d expected. They owned up to the problem, laid out a plan to fix it, delivered that fix ahead of schedule, and sweetened the deal for anyone who could have possibly been affected. Whether or not Nokia knew about the glitch prior to launch is a question that we may never get a clear answer on (though I’m inclined to say no, considering how much was at stake for that launch), but as far as that complaint goes that’s the least of Nokia’s issues.

Were Elop and Ihamuotila just being corporate cheerleaders, or were they engaged in a plan to willfully deceive and defraud their shareholders? Though Nokia definitely feels the execs fall into the former, I’ll be keeping my eyes on this for the long haul. Only time will tell how much steam the suit will pick up though — investors interested in taking up the role of the lead plaintiff have until July 2 to file the appropriate motion.

As Nokia continues to try to turn itself around as a mobile phone business, it is also playing on the offense in the legal game: today it announced that it has filed fresh round of patent suits — 11 in all — against HTC, RIM and Viewsonic across courts in the U.S. and Germany, covering some 45 patents, all told.

The suits go to show that a company like Nokia has a lot more arsenal in its stores to fight against competitors as it struggles win business with consumers. The fact that it has so many patents among its assets also means that there is significantly more value to this company than just its handset business.

These cases also represent new, legal patent ground in two ways that indicate Nokia is getting more aggressive in litigation (perhaps in inverse variation to its other fortunes):

1. Although there have been patent cases between Apple vs Nokia, and Apple vs HTC, Nokia tells me this is the first time that it has filed cases against any of these companies.
2. Nokia says that it has licensing deals with 40 companies covering standards-essential patents but the patents included in these cases appear to be outside of those deals: “Nokia had to file these actions to end the unauthorized use of our proprietary innovations and technologies, which have not been widely licensed,” noted Louise Pentland, chief legal officer at Nokia, in a statement.

Nokia says the patents concern “proprietary innovations” in hardware capabilities that involve dual function antennas, power management and multimode radios. Software features including app stores, multitasking, navigation, conversational message display, dynamic menus, data encryption and retrieval of email attachments on a mobile device are also included in the list.

Nokia says that it owns about 10,000 patent families. Recent research from Chetan Sharma noted that makes Nokia one of the biggest patent holders of all in mobile — although the rate at which it’s putting claims on to IP has slowed significantly as the company has cut costs and hunkered down for growth:

It looks like there are 11 separate cases in this latest patent dispute:

• a complaint to the US International Trade Commission (ITC) against HTC,
• a suit against HTC in the Federal District Court of Delaware,
• a suit against Viewsonic in the Federal District Court of Delaware,
• a suit against HTC in the Regional Court in Dusseldorf, Germany,
• a suit against RIM in the Regional Court in Dusseldorf, Germany,
• and suits against all three companies in the Regional Courts in both Mannheim and Munich, Germany (making six more suits).

In the meantime, Nokia has had another depressing quarter in terms of its own results, an in terms of how well its competitors did.

Nokia declined in almost every metric in its Q1 earnings two weeks ago, with sales falling by $4 billion to $9.2 billion and smartphone sales down by more than fifty percent both in terms of units and revenue. It has lost out to Samsung, by most accounts, as the world’s leading phone vendor, with smartphones increasingly looking like a two-horse race between Samsung and Apple.

Ironically, the two companies also getting the short end of the competitive stick against Apple and Samsung are none other than HTC and RIM.

Full statement below

Nokia takes new steps to protect its innovations and intellectual property

Patent suits filed against HTC, RIM and Viewsonic in the US and Germany

Espoo, Finland – Nokia has filed claims in the United States and Germany alleging that products from HTC, RIM and Viewsonic infringe a number of Nokia patents.

“Nokia is a leader in many technologies needed for great mobile products,” said Louise Pentland, chief legal officer at Nokia. “We have already licensed our standards essential patents to more than 40 companies. Though we’d prefer to avoid litigation, Nokia had to file these actions to end the unauthorized use of our proprietary innovations and technologies, which have not been widely licensed.”

Nokia’s actions include a complaint to the US International Trade Commission (ITC) against HTC, suits against HTC and Viewsonic in the Federal District Court of Delaware, US, against HTC and RIM in the Regional Court in Dusseldorf, Germany and against all three companies in the Regional Courts in Mannheim and Munich, Germany. In total, 45 Nokia patents are in suit in one or more of the actions.

Nokia proprietary innovations protected by these patents are being used by the companies to enable hardware capabilities such as dual function antennas, power management and multimode radios, as well as to enhance software features including application stores, multitasking, navigation, conversational message display, dynamic menus, data encryption and retrieval of email attachments on a mobile device.

“Many of these inventions are fundamental to Nokia products,” Pentland concluded. “We’d rather that other companies respect our intellectual property and compete using their own innovations, but as these actions show, we will not tolerate the unauthorized use of our inventions.”

About Nokia
Nokia is a global leader in mobile communications whose products have become an integral part of the lives of people around the world. Every day, more than 1.3 billion people use their Nokia to capture and share experiences, access information, find their way or simply to speak to one another. Nokia’s technological and design innovations have made its brand one of the most recognized in the world.

During the last two decades, Nokia has invested over EUR 45 billion in research and development and built the wireless industry’s strongest and broadest IPR portfolio, with around 10,000 patent families. Nokia is a world leader in the development of handheld device and mobile communications technologies, which is also demonstrated by Nokia’s strong patent position.

Reuters is reporting that Nokia is exploring selling the Vertu phone line to holding company Permira for $264.26 million, freeing itself from the difficult process of selling phones no one wants to people who should know better. Nokia called Vertu a “non-core asset.”

It’s odd that Vertu has been kept on life support for so long. Nokia has sold the underpowered, gem-encrusted phones since the turn of the century, depending on expensive cases to jack up the price on what amounts to a low-end Symbian phone in a pretty shell. Nokia has been trying to liquidate the company since 2011

Watchmaker Ulysses Nardin also sells a similar luxury phone, the Chairman, which is equally baffling.

Samsung has been, for years, slowly approaching Nokia as the world’s biggest handset maker, and today looks like the day the crown has been passed: As of last quarter, Strategy Analytics noted that Samsung shipped the most mobile devices of any single manufacturer world-wide, also taking pole position in smartphones. At the same time, Nokia not only slipped in those rankings but it also got another slap in the face, as Standard & Poor’s, the credit-rating agency, downgraded Nokia to “junk” status.

The news comes on the same day that Samsung presented its Q1 earnings, in which the Korean company reported revenues of 45 trillion won ($40 billion) for the three months that ended March 31 — citing strong results in the division that includes mobile devices, with especially “brisk sales” of its GALAXY S II smartphone and newer Galaxy Note device.

S&P’s downgrade for Nokia is the second credit-ratings blow to Nokia this week: Fitch also downgraded the company’s rating.

S&P says Nokia is now at BB+/B with the outlook at “negative.” It’s basing this not just on the weak results this quarter but also Nokia’s guidance for Q2: “We now expect Nokia to report significantly lower margins and cash flows in 2012 than we had previously expected,” S&P said in a statement.

“We now believe that revenues from the Devices and Services division could decline in 2012 by the same extent as in 2011 (minus 18 percent) after Nokia reported first quarter 2012 revenues below our expectations, particularly for Symbian-based smartphones. We still expect revenue from Lumia smartphones to grow over time but not sufficiently to offset a rapid decline in revenue from Symbian-based smartphones over the next few quarters.”

Nokia, once again, issued a statement reiterating its current net cash position of €4.9 billion ($6.5 billion) and determination to push ahead with its turnaround program.

It’s a big contrast to the story elsewhere: While Samsung does not provide unit sales numbers in its earnings, Strategy Analytics estimates that Samsung sold 93.5 million handsets in the last quarter to Nokia’s 82.7 million, the first time that it has overtaken the Finnish handset maker. Samsung accounted for 25.4 percent of all sales, compared to Nokia at 22.5 percent. Apple, with its smartphone-only line up, rounds out the list at 35.1 million units shipped, or 9.5 percent of the total. All others accounted for 156.7 million devices, giving a total of 368 million mobile shipments in the quarter.

In smartphones, Samsung has been even more impressive, says Strategy Analytics, effectively eating up all the share Nokia had and riding the wave of growth to pick up new users: the analysts estimate that Samsung nearly tripled its marketshare over last year, capturing 30.6 percent of the market compared to 12.2 percent a year ago. The works out to shipments of 44.5 million units, nearly four times as many as last year.

The usual caveats apply: These numbers represent estimated shipments and not actual sales — although some believe these can be interchangeable. Samsung does not provide hard numbers for shipments or sales, so that, too, can be debated. And, other analysts will produce different numbers — in this case, IHS iSuppli, as Barron’s points out, notes that while it too believes that Samsung overtook Nokia in overall mobile shipments, in smartphones, Apple is still selling more. (If only Samsung would just come clean on device numbers.)

In its quarterly earnings today, Samsung noted that its revenues represented growth of 22 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago. Margins improved as well: they are now at 12.9 percent, up 1.9 percent on last year. That helped contribute to a 98 percent increase on operating profit, which was 5.85 trillion won ($5.2 billion) for the quarter.

Samsung’s “seasonal” decreases in sales of semiconductor chips and TVs were more than offset by its performance its IT & Mobile Communications division, which includes its mobile phones business. That division made 4.27 trillion won ($3.8 billion) in operating profit. And revenues for that division were 23.33 trillion won, with most of that (18.90 trillion won; $16.7 billion) combing from mobile. Those mobile revenues were by by 86 percent over last year.

Financial fallout from last week’s Q1 earnings from beleaguered handset maker Nokia, which saw the company report declines in sales, profit and much else across the board: Fitch Ratings has once again downgraded the handset maker.

Nokia now stands at a BB+ rating from a previous rating of BBB- for its senior unsecured notes, Fitch writes in a statement. That puts the company’s stock at “below investment grade,” primary analyst Owen Fenton tells me, BBB- having been the lowest investment grade rating. Fitch further says that it has downgraded the company’s long-term issuer default rating, with the outlook on the long-term IDR now at “Negative” and that it may consider downgrading even further.

Nokia, as of March 31 2012, had gross cash balances of €9.8 billion, and a net cash position of €4.9 billion. In its quarterly results last week it reported that sales were down by $4 billion (€3.4 billion) to $9.7 billion (€7.4 billion), with a corresponding fall in earnings per share, down by a quarter of a euro and now at a loss per share of just over $0.10 (€0.08). Smartphones, the core of Nokia’s fightback strategy, declined by more than 50 percent both in revenues and unit sales.

“Nokia’s profile is no longer commensurate with an investment grade rating,” Fenton writes, citing not only the Q1 declines in Nokia’s core Devices and Services segment but also the fact that Nokia is not giving much more positive guidance for the quarter ahead, expecting -3 percent operating margins. The news comes after Moody’s on April 16 downgraded Nokia stock to its lowest investment grade.

Nokia has issued a response already to the rating, from Timo Ihamuotila, Nokia’s CFO, promising a quick response — which may mean more layoffs and other culling measures to drastically bring down costs:

“We are quickly taking action to position Nokia for future growth and success. Nokia will continue to increase its focus on lowering the company’s cost structure, improving cash flow and maintaining a strong financial position,” he said in a written statement.

For Fitch — and really for all of us watching the company — Nokia needs to show “substantial improvements” over the next few quarters in cash flow and profit margins if it hopes to improve its credit standing and avoid slipping even more.

“Fitch is currently not convinced that Nokia can attain this over the course of 18 months,” it writes.

Altogether, revenues in devices, Nokia’s most important segment, were down by 40 percent in Q1 to €4.2 billion. Within that there were some positive and negative stories:

Nokia has now sold 2 million units of the Lumia device, and the fact that it is driving hard to get more of those devices out into the market, are positive signs. But Nokia also saw declines in lower-end devices — an area that it had managed to keep stable up to now — and that is a worrying signal for what might come next. Nokia yesterday announced that it was upgrading the web browser in its feature phones to make it work faster and cost consumers less money to use.

Nokia just rolled out a new browser for Series 40, Asha devices. Browser 2.0 as it’s called features numerous improvements and enhancements, but its cloud-based compression is arguably the most important. Nokia claims that it condenses data by up to 90% making pages load three times faster while reducing the data cost to the user. The updated browser also features a download manager, improved search and it also enables multitasking while browsing allowing users to quickly switch to text messages and the like.

The cloud-based compression sounds a lot like Amazon’s Silk browser for the Kindle Fire. By routing web traffic through a Nokia server, the technology is able to compress the data on-the-fly. In many cases can speed up the page load time. Plus, it reduces the amount of data consumed by the phone, allowing owners more freedom from carriers putting the squeeze on data plans.

The feature phone is still Nokia’s bread and butter and still vastly outsells its smartphone devices. This update brings smartphone-like features to its otherwise mundane handsets. Browser 2.0 will ship on all new Series 40 devices including the Asha series. Existing owners can obtain the app as a free, optional over-the-air download.

As bad as Nokia’s financials look right now – a $4 billion drop in sales won’t make anyone’s day – don’t consider the Windows Phone move a failure just yet. They’ve done what many phone companies have thus far failed to do. They’ve changed swiftly with the times and, more important, they’ve done it in quite admirable way.

If you’ll recall, the first real Android phone was HTC’s G1. Considered a clunker by all but the most die-hard of users, the device sold fairly well, topping out at 1 million units in 2008. But the G1 did something more important than make T-Mobile the first Android carrier – it grabbed a certain user contingent who understood Android, understood the framework, and would follow the platform to the grave. The popularity of the G1 was a direct reaction to the burgeoning iOS platform. The same thing happened in the WebOS space, but WebOS was exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time and is a disaster distinct from the Android launch.

Over time, the maker of the G1, HTC, got better and better at making Android phones. The experience gained from the G1 allowed manufacturers to rejigger their sales strategy, leading to the famous Droid marketing campaign and the hysteria for Google’s Nexus line.

Nokia is in a similar place. The company has pivoted completely. Their popular Symbian smartphones are essentially dead and their Windows Phone line is curtailed until popular adoption grows. They’re essentially waiting. Most important, they’re taking a bath on the Lumia line by pricing it at or below the comfort level of most casual smartphone buyers

They’re selling loss leaders in order to gain market share. Microsoft knows it and Nokia knows it and I assure you HTC, Samsung, and LG know it. They only folks who shouldn’t be worried are Apple but I suspect Microsoft is definitely on their radar.

I can say one thing without equivocation: Windows Phone is better than Android. WinPho is monolithic, there are no clear issues with branching or hardware compatibility (today’s news notwithstanding), and WinPho’s UI familiarity will soon be bolstered by millions of Windows 8 installs around the world. Android is great if you’re a small manufacturer and you just want to dump a stack onto what would have once been called a feature phone. Windows Phone is great if you want the largesse, the popularity, and the trustworthiness of Microsoft behind your product.

So ignore Nokia at your peril. Their strategy is just right at just the right time. Remember: nobody ever got fired for installing Microsoft. Not even Stephen Elop.

Nokia warned us last week that it would be reporting some worse-than-expected numbers, and here they are: sales for Q1 are down by $4 billion (€3.4 billion) to $9.7 billion (€7.4 billion), with a corresponding fall in earnings per share, down by a quarter of a euro and now at a loss per share of just over $0.10 (€0.08). Smartphones, the core of Nokia’s fightback strategy, declined by more than 50 percent both in revenues and unit sales.

According to the results (pdf here) out just now, Nokia also swung to an operating loss of $1.7 billion, blaming the double-whammy of competition from Apple/Google as well as restructuring costs, as the company has pushed to put a stronger emphasis on its new line of smartphones in a race to gain back its rapidly disappearing market share in the higher-margin end of the smartphone market.

Overall, the company saw an eye-watering 40 percent drop in revenues from devices, its biggest business. They are now at €4.2 billion.

The biggest decline, perhaps most unfortunately, is that China sales have gone down by 70 percent over last year.This has been one of the big future hopes for the company in its recovery strategy, but that has been hit hard by competition from cheap Android device makers, and Apple, with consumers in the country increasingly turning to smartphones over lower-end devices. As a measure of what a decline this was: this time last year Greater China was Nokia’s second-biggest market; today it’s the third-smallest (after Latin America and North America, which had been in the bottom-two before as well).

The company also appears to be trying out one more executive change to stem that sales tide: Colin Giles, EVP and member of the Nokia Leadership Team, is leaving at the end of June. The reason given by the company is to be closer to his family. Nokia is not replacing him, saying that it is taking the moment to “reduce a layer of sales management to ensure greater customer focus.” The regional sales heads will now report directly to Niklas Savander, EVP of markets.

On a volumes level, Nokia’s mobile sales were down by 24 percent down to 82.7 million units. Smartphone volumes declined 51 percent, down to 11.9 million units.

Sales of smartphones were down by 52 percent to €1.7 billion. And margins on devices nearly halved too: they are now at 15.6 percent compared to 28.9 percent. One bright spot: the average selling price declined by only two percent and is now at €143. Nokia blamed declines in Symbian primarily for the problem, rather than sales in Windows Phone devices, which are now at 2 million units sold.

In the context of the declines in the smartphone segment, the declines in lower-end devices are relatively better. Down 32 percent to €2.3 billion and 16 percent in volumes to 70.8 million, with margins on the devices dropping by only about 2 percent.

Nokia Corporation Q1 2012 Interim Report

Nokia Corporation
Interim report
April 19, 2012 at 13.00 (CET+1)

This is a summary of the first quarter 2012 interim report published today. The complete first quarter 2012 interim report with tables is available athttp://www.nokia.com/results/Nokia_results2012Q1e.pdf. Investors should not rely on summaries of our interim reports only, but should review the complete interim reports with tables.

FINANCIAL AND OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS

- Q1 2012 net sales of EUR 7.4 billion (Q1 2011: EUR 10.4 billion)

- Non-IFRS EPS of EUR -0.08 and reported EPS of EUR -0.25

- Losses incurred due to greater than expected competitive challenges and seasonality; reported losses also primarily driven by charges related to restructuring activities

- Implementation of smartphone strategy proceeding:
- Expansion of Lumia portfolio to cover higher and lower price points (Lumia 900 and Lumia 610 announced in Q1)
- Expansion of geographic coverage to 45 countries currently (31 new countries in Q1)
- Encouraging launch of Lumia 900 with AT&T in US in April

- Renewing feature phone portfolio with 7 new Asha products ramping up

- Taking action to drive improvements in the trajectory of Lumia sales and to support feature phone sales
- Plans to accelerate and substantially deepen Devices & Services cost savings, consistent with strategic focus. Nokia will share further details as quickly as possible.
- Balance sheet remains strong with EUR 9.8 billion of gross cash at end-Q1; EUR 4.9 billion of net cash at end-Q1
- Estimates that current annual IPR royalty income run-rate is approximately EUR 0.5 billion

Commenting on the Q1 results, Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO, said: “We are navigating through a significant company transition in an industry environment that continues to evolve and shift quickly. Over the last year we have made progress on our new strategy, but we have faced greater than expected competitive challenges.

We have launched four Lumia devices ahead of schedule to encouraging awards and popular acclaim. The actual sales results have been mixed. We exceeded expectations in markets including the United States, but establishing momentum in certain markets including the UK has been more challenging.

At the same time, the lower price tiers of our industry are undergoing a structural change, and traditional feature phones are challenged by full touch devices. As a result we are taking deliberate measures to continue to renew our Series 40 platform, and we plan to strengthen our line-up in Q2 2012. We are making investments in our Mobile Phones business unit aimed at addressing the gaps in our offering.

We have a clear sense of urgency to move our strategy forward even faster. We are pursuing step function changes by having launched the Lumia 610 and Lumia 900 in the first quarter, expanding market coverage, increasing advertising, introducing key customer-requested features and broadening our most successful go-to-market activities. At the same time, we have focused our efforts in the low-end of smartphones and feature phone asset to drive improved business results and conserve cash.

We are confident in our strategy and focused on responding urgently in the short term and creating value for our shareholders in the long term.”

SUMMARY FINANCIAL INFORMATION

The following table sets forth selective line items for the periods indicated, as well as the year-on-year and sequential growth rates.

	Reported and Non-IFRS first quarter 2012 results1,2
EUR million	Q1/2012	Q1/2011	YoY Change	Q4/2011	QoQ Change
Nokia
Net sales	7 354	10 399	-29%	10 005	-26%
Operating profit	-1 340	439		-954
Operating profit (non-IFRS)	-260	704		478
EPS, EUR diluted	-0.25	0.09		-0.29
EPS, EUR diluted (non-IFRS)3	-0.08	0.13		0.06
Net cash from operating activities	-590	-173		634
Net cash and other liquid assets4	4 872	6 372	-24%	5 581	-13%
Devices & Services5
Net sales	4 246	7 087	-40%	5 997	-29%
Smart Devices net sales	1 704	3 528	-52%	2 747	-38%
Mobile Phones net sales	2 311	3 407	-32%	3 040	-24%
Mobile device volume (mn units)	82.7	108.5	-24%	113.5	-27%
Smart Devices volume (mn units)	11.9	24.2	-51%	19.6	-39%
Mobile Phones volume (mn units)	70.8	84.3	-16%	93.9	-25%
Mobile device ASP6	51	65	-22%	53	-4%
Smart Devices ASP6	143	146	-2%	140	2%
Mobile Phones ASP6	33	40	-18%	32	3%
Operating profit	-219	729		203
Operating profit (non-IFRS)	-127	733		292
Operating margin %	-5.2%	10.3%		3.4%
Operating margin % (non-IFRS)	-3.0%	10.3%		4.9%
Location & Commerce5
Net sales	277	232	19%	306	-9%
Operating profit	-94	-132		-1 205
Operating profit (non-IFRS)	36	-16		29	24%
Operating margin %	-33.9%	-56.9%		-393.8%
Operating margin % (non-IFRS)	12.9%	-6.9%		9.5%
Nokia Siemens Networks5,7
Net sales	2 947	3 171	-7%	3 815	-23%
Operating profit	-1 005	-142		67
Operating profit (non-IFRS)	-147	3		176
Operating margin %	-34.1%	-4.5%		1.8%
Operating margin % (non-IFRS)	-5.0%	0.1%		4.6%

Note 1 relating to non-IFRS results: Non-IFRS results exclude special items for all periods. In addition, non-IFRS results exclude intangible asset amortization, other purchase price accounting related items and inventory value adjustments arising from (i) the formation of Nokia Siemens Networks and (ii) all business acquisitions completed after June 30, 2008. More specific information about the exclusions from the non-IFRS results can be found in note 2 below and for Q1 2012 and Q1 2011 in our complete Q1 2012 interim report with tables on pages 20-22 and 24, and for Q4 2011 in our complete Q4 and full year 2011 report with tables on pages 4-5, 20-22 and 24 published on January 26, 2012.

Nokia believes that these non-IFRS financial measures provide meaningful supplemental information to both management and investors regarding Nokia’s performance by excluding the above-described items that may not be indicative of Nokia’s business operating results. These non-IFRS financial measures should not be viewed in isolation or as substitutes to the equivalent IFRS measure(s), but should be used in conjunction with the most directly comparable IFRS measure(s) in the reported results. A reconciliation of our Q1 2012 and Q1 2011 non-IFRS results to our reported results can be found in our complete Q1 2012 interim report with tables on pages 18 and 20-24. A reconciliation of our Q4 2011 non-IFRS results to our reported results can be found in our complete Q4 and full year 2011 report with tables on pages 17 and 20-24 published on January 26, 2012.

Note 2 relating to non-IFRS exclusions:

Q1 2012 – EUR 1 080 million consisting of:
- EUR 772 million restructuring charge and other associated items in Nokia Siemens Networks
- EUR 10 million restructuring charge in Location & Commerce
- EUR 91 million restructuring charge in Devices & Services
- EUR 86 million of intangible asset amortization and other purchase price accounting related items arising from the formation of Nokia Siemens Networks and the acquisition of Motorola Solutions’ networks assets
- EUR 120 million of intangible asset amortization and other purchase price accounting related items arising from the acquisition of NAVTEQ
- EUR 1 million of intangible assets amortization and other purchase price related items arising from the acquisition of Novarra, MetaCarta and Motally in Devices & Services   

Q1 2012 taxes – EUR 135 million valuation allowance for Nokia Siemens Networks deferred tax assets impacting Nokia taxes.

Q1 2011 – EUR 265 million consisting of:
- EUR 28 million restructuring charge and other associated items in Nokia Siemens Networks
- EUR 117 million of intangible asset amortization and other purchase price accounting related items arising from the formation of Nokia Siemens Networks
- EUR 116 million of intangible asset amortization and other purchase price accounting related items arising from the acquisition of NAVTEQ
- EUR 4 million of intangible assets amortization and other purchase price related items arising from the acquisition of OZ Communications, Novarra, MetaCarta and Motally in Devices & Services

Q4 2011 – EUR 1 432 million (net) consisting of:
- EUR 1 090 million partial impairment of goodwill in Location & Commerce
- EUR 25 million restructuring charge in Location & Commerce
- EUR 119 million of intangible asset amortization and other purchase price accounting related items arising from the acquisition of NAVTEQ
- EUR 100 million restructuring charge and EUR 36 million associated impairments in Devices & Services
- EUR 2 million of intangible assets amortization and other purchase price related items arising from the acquisition of Novarra, MetaCarta and Motally in Devices & Services
- EUR 86 million of intangible asset amortization and other purchase price accounting related items arising from the formation of Nokia Siemens Networks and the acquisition of Motorola Solutions’ networks assets
- EUR 23 million restructuring charge and other associated items in Nokia Siemens Networks
- EUR 49 million positive item from a cartel claim settlement  

Note 3 relating to non-IFRS Nokia EPS: Nokia taxes continued to be unfavorably impacted by Nokia Siemens Networks taxes as no tax benefits are recognized for certain Nokia Siemens Networks deferred tax items. In Q1 2012, one-quarter tax expenses in Devices & Services also had an unfavorable impact. If Nokia’s estimated long-term tax rate of 26% had been applied, non-IFRS Nokia EPS would have been approximately 2.1 Euro cents higher in Q1 2012.

Note 4 relating to Nokia net cash and other liquid assets: Calculated as total cash and other liquid assets less interest-bearing liabilities.

Note 5 relating to operational and reporting structure: We adopted our current operational structure during 2011 and have three businesses: Devices & Services, Location & Commerce and Nokia Siemens Networks and four operating and reportable segments: Smart Devices and Mobile Phones within Devices & Services, Location & Commerce and Nokia Siemens Networks. Smart Devices focuses on smartphones and Mobile Phones focuses on mass market feature phones. Devices & Services also contains Devices & Services Other which includes net sales of our luxury phone business Vertu, spare parts and related cost of sales and operating expenses, as well as intellectual property related royalty income and common research and development expenses. Location & Commerce focuses on the development of location-based services and local commerce. Nokia Siemens Networks is one of the leading global providers of telecommunications infrastructure hardware, software and services.

Note 6 relating to average selling prices (ASP): Mobile device ASP represents total Devices & Services net sales (Smart Devices net sales, Mobile Phones net sales, and Devices & Services Other net sales) divided by total Devices & Services volumes. Devices & Services Other net sales includes net sales of Nokia’s luxury phone business Vertu and spare parts, as well as intellectual property royalty income. Smart Devices ASP represents Smart Devices net sales divided by Smart Devices volumes. Mobile Phones ASP represents Mobile Phones net sales divided by Mobile Phones volumes.

Note 7 relating to Nokia Siemens Networks: Nokia Siemens Networks completed the acquisition of Motorola Solutions’ networks assets on April 30, 2011. Accordingly, the results of Nokia Siemens Networks for the first quarter 2012 are not directly comparable to its results for the first quarter 2011.

NOKIA OUTLOOK

- Nokia expects its non-IFRS Devices & Services operating margin in the second quarter 2012 to be similar to or below the first quarter 2012 level of negative 3.0%. This outlook reflects that the first quarter 2012 benefit related to lower warranty costs is expected to be non-recurring, as well as expectations regarding a number of factors including:
- competitive industry dynamics continuing to negatively affect the Smart Devices and Mobile Phones business units;
- timing, ramp-up, and consumer demand related to new products; and
- the macroeconomic environment.

- Nokia continues to target to reduce Devices & Services non-IFRS operating expenses by more than EUR 1 billion for the full year 2013, compared to the full year 2010 Devices & Services non-IFRS operating expenses of EUR 5.35 billion. Nokia plans to accelerate and substantially deepen Devices & Services cost savings, consistent with its strategic focus. Nokia will share further details as quickly as possible.
- Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks expect Nokia Siemens Networks non-IFRS operating margin to clearly improve in the second quarter 2012 compared to the first quarter 2012 level of negative 5.0%. Due to the nature of the restructuring program as well as prevailing uncertain macroeconomic conditions, the timing of improvements in profitability is uncertain and therefore Nokia Siemens Networks’ non-IFRS operating margin in 2012 is expected to be volatile.
- Nokia Siemens Networks continues to target to reduce its non-IFRS annualized operating expenses and production overheads by EUR 1 billion by the end of 2013, compared to the end of 2011.

FIRST QUARTER 2012 FINANCIAL AND OPERATING DISCUSSION

NOKIA GROUP

We adopted our current operational structure during 2011 and have three businesses: Devices & Services, Location & Commerce and Nokia Siemens Networks and four operating and reportable segments: Smart Devices and Mobile Phones within Devices & Services, Location & Commerce and Nokia Siemens  Networks. Smart Devices focuses on smartphones and Mobile Phones focuses on mass market feature phones. Devices & Services also contains Devices & Services Other which includes net sales of our luxury phone business Vertu, spare parts and related cost of sales and operating expenses, as well as intellectual property related royalty income and common research and development expenses. Location & Commerce focuses on the development of location-based services and local commerce. Nokia Siemens Networks is one of the leading global providers of telecommunications infrastructure hardware, software and services.

The following discussion includes non-IFRS results information. Non-IFRS results exclude special items for all periods. In addition, non-IFRS results exclude intangible asset amortization, other purchase price accounting related items and inventory value adjustments arising from (i) the formation of Nokia Siemens Networks and (ii) all business acquisitions completed after June 30, 2008.

The following table sets forth the year-on-year and sequential growth rates in our net sales on a reported basis and at constant currency for the periods indicated.

FIRST QUARTER 2012 NET SALES, REPORTED & CONSTANT CURRENCY1
	YoY Change	QoQ Change
Group net sales – reported	-29%	-26%
Group net sales – constant currency1	-29%	-28%
Devices & Services net sales – reported	-40%	-29%
Devices & Services net sales – constant currency1	-38%	-30%
Nokia Siemens Networks net sales – reported	-7%	-23%
Nokia Siemens Networks net sales – constant currency1	-9%	-24%

Note 1: Change in net sales at constant currency excludes the impact of changes in exchange rates in comparison to the Euro, our reporting currency.

The following table sets forth Nokia Group’s reported cash flow for the periods indicated and financial position at the end of the periods indicated, as well as the year-on-year and sequential growth rates.

NOKIA GROUP CASH FLOW AND FINANCIAL POSITION
EUR million	Q1/2012	Q1/2011	YoY Change	Q4/2011	QoQ Change
Net cash from operating activities	-590	-173		634
Total cash and other liquid assets	9 793	11 056	-11%	10 902	-10%
Net cash and other liquid assets1	4 872	6 372	-24%	5 581	-13%

Note 1: Total cash and other liquid assets minus interest-bearing liabilities.

Year-on-year, net cash and other liquid assets decreased by EUR 1.5 billion primarily due to payment of the dividend, cash outflows related to the acquisition of Motorola Solutions’ networks assets and capital expenditures, partially offset by a EUR 500 million equity investment in Nokia Siemens Networks by Siemens, the receipt of quarterly platform support payments from Microsoft and positive overall net cash from operating activities.

Sequentially, net cash and other liquid assets decreased by EUR 0.7 billion primarily due to unfavorable and mostly non-recurring net working capital changes in Devices & Services as well as operating losses, capital expenditure and cash outflows related to restructuring, partially offset by a positive contribution from Nokia Siemens Networks and the receipt of a quarterly platform support payment from Microsoft.

Sequentially, Devices & Services net working capital changes in the first quarter 2012 had a negative impact on net cash and other liquid assets. The working capital change was primarily due to accounts payable balances declining more than the combined declines in accounts receivable and inventory balances. The end-of-quarter days of sales outstanding was higher sequentially resulting from a lower proportion of net sales in regions with faster payment terms, including India and China. The end-of-quarter days of sales in inventory was higher sequentially resulting from the ramp-up of Lumia devices. Unless there are similar fluctuations in the composition of Devices & Services net sales and inventory, we expect the unfavorable impact of Devices & Services working capital changes in the first quarter 2012 to be mostly non-recurring.  We are focused on improving Devices & Services working capital performance, and we see opportunities to improve inventory, accounts payable and accounts receivable management over the remainder of 2012.

In the first quarter 2012, Nokia Siemens Networks’ contribution to net cash from operating activities was approximately EUR 410 million. This was primarily driven by working capital improvements, partially offset by operating losses.  In the first quarter 2012, Nokia Siemens Networks’ working capital performance improved by approximately EUR 540 million, primarily related to significantly improved accounts receivables collection as well as higher advanced payments from customers.

Our agreement with Microsoft includes platform support payments from Microsoft to us as well as software royalty payments from us to Microsoft.  In the first quarter 2012, we received a quarterly platform support payment of USD 250 million (approximately EUR 189 million).  We have a competitive software royalty structure, which includes minimum software royalty commitments. Over the life of the agreement, both the platform support payments and the minimum software royalty commitments are expected to measure in the billions of US Dollars. The total amount of the platform support payments is expected to slightly exceed the total amount of the minimum software royalty commitments.

DEVICES & SERVICES

The following table sets forth a summary of the results for our Devices & Services business for the periods indicated, as well as the year-on-year and sequential growth rates.

DEVICES & SERVICES RESULTS SUMMARY
	Q1/2012	Q1/2011	YoY Change	Q4/2011	QoQ Change
Net sales (EUR million)1	4 246	7 087	-40%	5 997	-29%
Mobile device volume (million units)	82.7	108.5	-24%	113.5	-27%
Mobile device ASP (EUR)	51	65	-22%	53	-4%
Non-IFRS gross margin (%)	24.4%	28.8%		25.8%
Non-IFRS operating expenses (EUR million)	1 123	1 322	-15%	1 262	-11%
Non-IFRS operating margin (%)	-3.0%	10.3%		4.9%

Note 1: Includes IPR royalty income recognized in Devices & Services Other net sales.

Net Sales
The year-on-year and sequential decline in our Devices & Services net sales are discussed below under our Smart Devices and Mobile Phones business units. We estimate that our current annual IPR royalty income run-rate is approximately EUR 0.5 billion. At constant currency, Devices & Services net sales would have decreased 38% year-on-year and 30% sequentially.

The following table sets forth the net sales for our Devices & Services business for the periods indicated, as well as the year-on-year and sequential growth rates, by geographic area. IPR royalty income is allocated to the geographic areas contained in this chart.

DEVICES & SERVICES NET SALES BY GEOGRAPHIC AREA
EUR million	Q1/2012	Q1/2011	YoY Change	Q4/2011	QoQ Change
Europe	1 352	2 082	-35%	1 922	-30%
Middle East & Africa	737	1 088	-32%	1 065	-31%
Greater China	577	1 902	-70%	1 008	-43%
Asia-Pacific	945	1 317	-28%	1 297	-27%
North America	93	140	-34%	53	75%
Latin America	542	558	-3%	652	-17%
Total	4 246	7 087	-40%	5 997	-29%

On a year-on-year basis Devices & Services net sales in the first quarter 2012 declined in all regions, particularly in China, primarily due to competitive industry dynamics adversely affecting both our Mobile Phones and Smart Devices net sales. On a sequential basis, Devices & Services net sales in the first quarter 2012 declined in all regions, except for North America, where sales were driven by the introduction of the Nokia Lumia 710 with T-Mobile.

Volume
The following table sets forth the mobile device volumes for our Devices & Services business for the periods indicated, as well as the year-on-year and sequential growth rates, by geographic area.

DEVICES & SERVICES MOBILE DEVICE VOLUMES BY GEOGRAPHIC AREA
million units	Q1/2012	Q1/2011	YoY Change	Q4/2011	QoQ Change
Europe	15.8	23.4	-32%	25.3	-38%
Middle East & Africa	21.4	22.2	-4%	25.9	-17%
Greater China	9.2	23.9	-62%	14.7	-37%
Asia-Pacific	26.1	27.3	-4%	34.7	-25%
North America	0.6	1.2	-50%	0.5	20%
Latin America	9.6	10.5	-9%	12.4	-23%
Total	82.7	108.5	-24%	113.5	-27%

On a year-on-year basis, the decline in our total Devices & Services volumes in the first quarter 2012 was driven by significantly lower volumes in both Mobile Phones and Smart Devices volumes as discussed below.

The sequential decline in our total Devices & Services volumes in the first quarter 2012 was driven by significantly lower Mobile Phones volumes and Smart Device volumes, including lower seasonal demand for our devices, as discussed below.

During the first quarter 2012, our overall channel inventory increased on a sequential basis. We ended the first quarter 2012 around the high end of our normal 4 to 6 week channel inventory range, but on an absolute unit basis, channel inventories declined sequentially.

Average Selling Price
On a year-on-year basis, the overall decrease in our Devices & Services ASP in the first quarter 2012 was driven primarily by the lower ASP in Mobile Phones, a higher proportion of Mobile Phones sales and the negative impact from foreign currency hedging, partially offset by higher IPR royalty income.

On a sequential basis, the overall decrease in our Devices & Services ASP in the first quarter 2012 was driven primarily by a product mix shift towards Mobile Phones and the negative impact from foreign currency hedging, partially offset by a positive impact from the depreciation of the Euro against certain currencies.

Gross Margin
On a year-on-year basis, the decline in our Devices & Services non-IFRS gross margin in the first quarter 2012 was driven primarily by the significant gross margin decline in Smart Devices and, to a much lesser extent, in Mobile Phones, partially offset by higher IPR royalty income.

On a sequential basis, the decline in our Devices & Services non-IFRS gross margin in the first quarter 2012 was driven primarily by gross margin declines in both Smart Devices and Mobiles Phones, partially offset by a positive impact from lower warranty costs, which is expected to be non-recurring, and higher IPR royalty income.

Operating Expenses
Devices & Services non-IFRS operating expenses decreased 15% year-on-year and 11% sequentially in the first quarter 2012. On both a year-on-year and sequential basis, operating expenses related to Mobile Phones increased 22% and 10%, respectively, in the first quarter 2012, whereas operating expenses related to Smart Devices decreased 33% and 24%, respectively, in the first quarter 2012. These year-on-year and sequential changes resulted, in addition to the factors described below, from the proportionate allocation of operating expenses being impacted by the relative mix of sales and gross profit performance between Mobile Phones and Smart Devices. This resulted in higher and lower relative allocations to Mobile Phones and Smart Devices, respectively. In addition, both the year-on-year and sequential decline in Smart Devices was driven by the cost savings actions related to our Symbian and MeeGo activities.

Devices & Services non-IFRS research and development expenses decreased 22% year-on-year in the first quarter 2012. On a sequential basis, Devices & Services non-IFRS research and development expenses decreased 11% in the first quarter 2012. Both the year-on-year and sequential declines were primarily due to a reduction in Symbian and MeeGo related costs as well as ongoing cost controls. This was partially offset by an increase in Mobile Phones research and development expenses primarily due to investments in product development to bring new innovations to the market in support of our strategy to bring the internet and information to the next billion.

Devices & Services non-IFRS sales and marketing expenses decreased 8% year-on-year in the first quarter 2012. On a sequential basis, Devices & Services non-IFRS sales and marketing expenses decreased 16% in the first quarter 2012. Year-on-year, marketing expenses declined primarily due to lower marketing expenditure on Symbian, partially offset by higher marketing expenditure on Lumia. Sequentially, marketing expenses declined primarily due to lower marketing expenditure on MeeGo and Symbian.

Devices & Services non-IFRS administrative and general expenses decreased 5% year-on-year in the first quarter 2012 as near-term cost controls were partially offset by shared function cost categorization. On a sequential basis, Devices & Services non-IFRS administrative and general expenses increased 26% in the first quarter 2012 due to shared function cost categorization.

In the first quarter 2012, Devices & Services non-IFRS other income and expense had a negative year-on-year and sequential impact on profitability. Reported other income and expense was significantly adversely impacted in the first quarter 2012 primarily as a result of restructuring-related expenses discussed below, which were recognized in Devices & Services Other.

Cost Reduction Activities and Planned Operational Adjustments
We continue to target to reduce our Devices & Services non-IFRS operating expenses by more than EUR 1 billion for the full year 2013, compared to the full year 2010 Devices & Services non-IFRS operating expenses of EUR 5.35 billion. We plan to accelerate and substantially deepen Devices & Services cost savings, consistent with our strategic focus. Nokia will share further details as quickly as possible.

During the first quarter 2012, Devices & Services recognized net charges of EUR 91 million related to restructuring activities. As of the end of the first quarter 2012, we had recognized cumulative charges of EUR 888 million related to restructuring activities.

While the total extent of the restructuring activities is still to be determined, we currently anticipate cumulative charges in Devices & Services of around EUR 900 million before the end of 2012 in relation to our previously announced cost reduction target of more than EUR 1 billion. We also believe total cash outflows related to our Devices & Services restructuring activities will be below the level of the cumulative charges related to these restructuring activities.

SMART DEVICES

The following table sets forth a summary of the results for our Smart Devices business unit for the periods indicated, as well as the year-on-year and sequential growth rates.

SMART DEVICES RESULTS SUMMARY
	Q1/2012	Q1/2011	YoY Change	Q4/2011	QoQ Change
Net sales (EUR millions)1	1 704	3 528	-52%	2 747	-38%
Smart Devices volume (million units)	11.9	24.2	-51%	19.6	-39%
Smart Devices ASP (EUR)	143	146	-2%	140	2%
Gross margin (%)	15.6%	28.9%		19.9%
Operating expenses (EUR millions)2	556	834	-33%	732	-24%
Contribution margin (%)2	-18.3%	5.3%		-7.0%

Note 1: Does not include IPR royalty income. IPR royalty income is recognized in Devices & Services Other net sales.
Note 2: The year-on-year and sequential decreases in operating expenses resulted from the proportionate allocation of operating expenses being impacted by the relative mix of sales and gross profit performance between Mobile Phones and Smart Devices, resulting in lower relative allocations to Smart Devices in the first quarter 2012.

Net Sales
The year-on-year decline in our Smart Devices net sales in the first quarter 2012 was primarily due to significantly lower Symbian volumes. On a sequential basis, the decline in our Smart Devices net sales in the first quarter 2012 was also due to lower Symbian volumes, partially offset by growing sales of Nokia Lumia devices.

Volume
The year-on-year decline in our Smart Devices volumes in the first quarter 2012 continued to be driven by the strong momentum of competing smartphone platforms relative to our Symbian devices. All regions showed a significant year-on-year decline in the first quarter 2012 except for Latin and North America, which showed slight year-on-year growth.

On a sequential basis, the decline in our Smart Devices volumes in the first quarter 2012 was primarily driven by lower Symbian volumes in all regions, as well as lower seasonal demand for our products, which more than offset the sequential increase in Nokia Lumia device volumes.

Average Selling Price
The year-on-year decline in our Smart Devices ASP in the first quarter 2012 was driven primarily by price erosion due to the competitive environment and a higher proportion of sales of lower priced Symbian devices. This was partially offset by sales of Nokia Lumia devices at an ASP of approximately EUR 220, as well as a positive impact related to deferred revenue on services sold in combination with our devices.

Sequentially, the slight increase in our Smart Devices ASP in the first quarter 2012 was driven primarily by a positive mix shift towards the sales of Nokia Lumia devices, and a positive impact related to deferred revenue on services sold in combination with our devices, partially offset by price actions taken related to specific products across our portfolio due to the competitive environment.

Gross Margin
The significant year-on-year decline in our Smart Devices gross margin in the first quarter 2012 was driven primarily by greater price erosion than cost erosion within our Symbian portfolio due to the competitive environment, partially offset by a positive impact related to deferred revenue related on services sold in combination with our devices and lower warranty costs.

On a sequential basis, the decline in our Smart Devices gross margin in the first quarter 2012 was primarily driven by greater price erosion than cost erosion mainly related to our Symbian and Nokia N9 smartphones, targeted price reductions of the Nokia Lumia 710 to accelerate growth as well as higher per unit fixed costs related to our Symbian devices due to declining volumes. The overall sequential decline was partially offset by lower Symbian-related allowances and lower warranty costs.

MOBILE PHONES

The following table sets forth a summary of the results for our Mobile Phones business unit for the periods indicated, as well as the year-on-year and sequential growth rates.

MOBILE PHONES RESULTS SUMMARY
	Q1/2012	Q1/2011	YoY Change	Q4/2011	QoQ Change
Net sales (EUR millions)1	2 311	3 407	-32%	3 040	-24%
Mobile Phones volume (million units)	70.8	84.3	-16%	93.9	-25%
Mobile Phones ASP (EUR)	33	40	-18%	32	3%
Gross margin (%)	25.9%	27.9%		27.7%
Operating expenses (EUR million)2	472	387	22%	429	10%
Contribution margin (%)2	4.6%	16.5%		13.5%

Note 1: Does not include IPR royalty income. IPR royalty income is recognized in Devices & Services Other net sales.
Note 2: The year-on-year and sequential increases in operating expenses resulted from the proportionate allocation of operating expenses being impacted by the relative mix of  sales and gross profit performance between Mobile Phones and Smart Devices, resulting in higher relative allocations to Mobile Phones in the first quarter 2012.

Net Sales
On a year-on-year basis, our Mobile Phones net sales in the first quarter 2012 decreased due to the lower ASP and volumes.  On a sequential basis, the decline in our Mobile Phones net sales in the first quarter 2012 was due to lower volumes.

Volume
On a year-on-year basis, the decline in our Mobile Phones volumes in the first quarter 2012 was primarily driven by our reduced portfolio of higher priced feature phones compared to the first quarter 2011, partially offset by sales of recently introduced products which represented a higher proportion of our portfolio. In addition, the year-on-year decline was due to distributors and operators purchasing fewer of our feature phones during the first quarter 2012 as they reduced their inventories of our feature phones compared to increasing their inventories in the first quarter 2011. The year-on-year decline in our Mobile Phones volumes in the first quarter 2012 was most pronounced in China and Europe primarily due to competition from more affordable smartphones and increased competition from competitors with broader portfolios of feature phones with more smartphone-like experiences, such as full touch devices.

On a sequential basis, the decline in our Mobile Phones volumes in the first quarter 2012 was primarily driven by lower seasonal demand for our feature phones and aggressive price competition, especially in entry-level feature phones, partially offset by sales of recently introduced products which represented a higher proportion of our portfolio. The sequential decline was also due to distributors and operators purchasing fewer of our feature phones during the first quarter 2012 as they reduced their inventories of our feature phones compared to increasing their inventories in the fourth quarter 2011. In addition, we faced increased competition from more affordable smartphones and competitors with broader portfolios of feature phones with more smartphone-like experiences, such as full touch devices. The sequential decline in our Mobile Phones volumes in the first quarter 2012 was most pronounced in India and Europe, primarily due to the factors mentioned above.

Average Selling Price
The year-on-year decline in our Mobile Phones ASP in the first quarter 2012 was primarily driven by an increased proportion of sales of lower priced devices and the negative impact from foreign currency hedging, partially offset by sales of recently introduced higher priced devices, including the Asha family.

On a sequential basis, our Mobile Phones ASP increased slightly in the first quarter of 2012 due to a mix shift towards recently-introduced higher priced devices, including the Asha family, as well as the positive impact from the depreciation of the Euro against certain currencies, partially offset by general price erosion and the negative impact from foreign currency hedging.

Gross Margin
The year-on-year decline in our Mobile Phones gross margin in the first quarter 2012 was primarily due to greater price erosion than cost erosion, a negative product mix shift towards lower gross margin feature phones, partially offset by lower warranty costs.

The sequential decrease in our Mobile Phones gross margin in the first quarter 2012 was primarily due to greater price erosion than cost erosion, partially offset by a positive impact related to deferred revenue on services sold in combination with our devices and lower warranty costs.

LOCATION & COMMERCE

The following table sets forth a summary of the results for Location & Commerce for the periods indicated, as well as the year-on-year and sequential growth rates.

LOCATION & COMMERCE RESULTS SUMMARY
	Q1/2012	Q1/2011	YoY Change	Q4/2011	QoQ Change
Net sales (EUR millions)	277	232	19%	306	-9%
Non-IFRS gross margin (%)	77.7%	81.0%		77.8%
Non-IFRS operating expenses (EUR millions)	174	205	-15%	206	-16%
Non-IFRS operating margin (%)	12.9%	-6.9%		9.5%

Net Sales
The year-on-year increase in Location & Commerce net sales in the first quarter 2012 was primarily driven by higher recognition of deferred revenue related to sales of map platform licenses to Smart Devices and, to a lesser extent, by higher sales of map content licenses to vehicle customers due to higher consumer uptake of vehicle navigation systems as well as higher sales to portable navigation devices (PND) customers.

Sequentially, the decrease in Location & Commerce net sales in the first quarter 2012 was primarily due to seasonally lower sales to portable navigation devices (PND) customers as well as lower sales of map update content licenses in the vehicle segment.

Gross Margin
On a sequential basis, the Location & Commerce non-IFRS gross margin in the first quarter 2012 remained unchanged.

On a year-on-year basis, the decline in Location & Commerce non-IFRS gross margin in the first quarter 2012 was primarily due to a shift of research and development operating expenses to cost of sales as a result of the divestiture of the media advertising business.

Operating Expenses
Location & Commerce non-IFRS research and development expenses decreased 19% year-on-year in the first quarter 2012 reflecting a shift in expenses from research and development to costs of sales related to the divestiture of the media advertising business. Location & Commerce non-IFRS research and development expenses decreased 18% sequentially in the first quarter 2012 primarily driven by cost reduction actions.

Location & Commerce non-IFRS sales and marketing expenses decreased 14% year-on-year and 17% sequentially. On a year-on-year and sequential basis, the primary driver for the decrease was cost reduction actions. In addition, reduced marketing spend contributed to the sequential decline.

Location & Commerce non-IFRS administrative and general expenses increased 25% year-on-year and 11% sequentially in the first quarter 2012, primarily due to higher use of services provided by shared support functions.

NOKIA SIEMENS NETWORKS

Nokia Siemens Networks completed the acquisition of Motorola Solutions’ networks assets on April 30, 2011. Accordingly, the results of Nokia Siemens Networks for the first quarter 2012 are not directly comparable to its results for the first quarter 2011.

The following table sets forth a summary of the results for Nokia Siemens Networks for the periods indicated, as well as the year-on-year and sequential growth rates.

NOKIA SIEMENS NETWORKS RESULTS SUMMARY
	Q1/2012	Q1/2011	YoY Change	Q4/2011	QoQ Change
Net sales (EUR millions)	2 947	3 171	-7%	3 815	-23%
Non-IFRS gross margin (%)	26.6%	26.9%		29.2%
Non-IFRS operating expenses (EUR millions)	937	852	10%	943	-1%
Non-IFRS operating margin (%)	-5.0%	0.1%		4.6%

Net Sales
The following table sets forth Nokia Siemens Networks net sales for the periods indicated, as well as the year-on-year and sequential growth rates, by geographic area.

NOKIA SIEMENS NETWORKS NET SALES BY GEOGRAPHIC AREA
EUR millions	Q1/2012	Q1/2011	YoY Change	Q4/2011	QoQ Change
Europe	930	1 001	-7%	1 272	-27%
Middle East & Africa	270	307	-12%	394	-31%
Greater China	209	322	-35%	438	-52%
Asia-Pacific	877	988	-11%	909	-4%
North America	283	169	67%	293	-3%
Latin America	378	384	-2%	509	-26%
Total	2 947	3 171	-7%	3 815	-23%

The year-on-year decrease in Nokia Siemens Networks’ net sales in the first quarter 2012 was driven primarily by a decline in sales of infrastructure equipment, which more than offset a slight increase in sales of services. The sequential decline in Nokia Siemens Networks’ net sales in the first quarter 2012 was driven primarily by industry seasonality.

At constant currency, Nokia Siemens Networks’ net sales would have decreased 9% year-on-year and 24% sequentially.

Gross Margin
The slight year-on-year decline in Nokia Siemens Networks’ non-IFRS gross margin in the first quarter 2012 was primarily due to an unfavorable mix towards lower gross margin services revenues, partially offset by improved performance in infrastructure equipment. On a year-on-year basis, Nokia Siemens Networks’ non-IFRS gross margin in the first quarter 2012 was negatively impacted by an unfavorable regional sales mix.

On a sequential basis, the decrease in Nokia Siemens Networks’ non-IFRS gross margin in the first quarter 2012 was driven by an unfavorable product mix towards lower margin services as well as lower seasonal revenues. On a sequential basis, Nokia Siemens Networks’ non-IFRS gross margin in the first quarter 2012 was negatively impacted by an unfavorable regional sales mix.

Operating Expenses
Nokia Siemens Networks’ non-IFRS research and development expenses increased 14% year-on-year in the first quarter 2012 primarily due to the addition of the research and development operations related to the acquired Motorola Solutions networks assets as well as investments in strategic initiatives. On a sequential basis, Nokia Siemens Networks’ non-IFRS research and development expenses in the first quarter 2012 were approximately flat.

Nokia Siemens Networks’ non-IFRS sales and marketing expenses decreased 3% year-on-year in the first quarter 2012 primarily due to the lower net sales, partially offset by the addition of the sales and marketing operations related to the acquired Motorola Solutions networks assets. On a sequential basis, Nokia Siemens Networks non-IFRS sales and marketing expenses decreased 3% in the first quarter 2012 primarily due to the lower net sales.

Nokia Siemens Networks’ non-IFRS administrative and general expenses increased 22% year-on-year in the first quarter 2012 primarily reflecting the addition of Motorola Solutions’ network assets. Sequentially, Nokia Siemens Networks non-IFRS administrative and general expenses increased 6% in the first quarter 2012 primarily due to higher legal costs.

Nokia Siemens Networks’ non-IFRS other income for the first quarter 2012 was approximately flat on both a year-on-year and sequential basis.

Operating Margin
The lower year-on-year Nokia Siemens Networks non-IFRS operating margin in the first quarter 2012 was primarily driven by lower net sales and increased operating expenses.

The sequential decline in Nokia Siemens Networks’ non-IFRS operating margin in the first quarter 2012 primarily reflected the lower seasonal net sales, lower gross margin and flat operating expenses.

Strategy Update and Global Restructuring Program
On November 23, 2011 Nokia Siemens Networks announced its strategy to focus on mobile broadband and services and the launch of an extensive global restructuring program.

Nokia Siemens Networks continues to target to reduce its non-IFRS annualized operating expenses and production overheads by EUR 1 billion by the end of 2013, compared to the end of 2011. While these savings are expected to come largely from organizational streamlining, the company will also target areas such as real estate, information technology, product and service procurement costs, overall general and administrative expenses, and a significant reduction of suppliers in order to further lower costs and improve quality.

In the first quarter of 2012, Nokia Siemens Network recognized restructuring charges and other associated items of EUR 772 million related to this restructuring program. While the total extent of the restructuring activities is still to be determined, we currently anticipate cumulative charges in Nokia Siemens Networks of around EUR 1 billion before the end of 2012. We also believe total cumulative cash outflows related to the Nokia Siemens Networks restructuring activities will be around the same level as the cumulative charges related to these restructuring activities.

Cash preservation is a clear priority at Nokia Siemens Networks, and the company intends to be self-funding in all aspects of its operations.  Nokia Siemens Networks’ restructuring program, combined with the company’s focus on improving its financial performance, is designed to enable the company to end 2012 with higher net cash than at the end of 2011.

FIRST QUARTER 2012 OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS

NOKIA OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS
- Nokia announced planned changes at its factories in Komarom in Hungary, Reynosa in Mexico and Salo in Finland. The measures followed a review of smartphone manufacturing operations that Nokia announced last September and aim to increase the company’s competitiveness in the diverse global mobile device market. These three factories are planned to focus on smartphone product customization, serving customers mainly in Europe and the Americas. Device assembly is expected to be transferred to Nokia factories in Asia, where the majority of component suppliers are based.
- Nokia, and De’ Longhi SpA, a global leader in household appliances, agreed terms for De’ Longhi to acquire Nokia’s production facility in Cluj, Romania. The transaction was completed in March 2012.
- Nokia appointed Marko Ahtisaari as Executive Vice President, Design, and a member of the Nokia Leadership Team, effective February 1, 2012. He reports directly to President and CEO Stephen Elop.

DEVICES & SERVICES OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS

SMART DEVICES
- Nokia has continued to expand the breadth and depth of its Lumia range of Windows Phone-based smartphones since their debut in November 2011. Consumers in 45 markets around the world can now purchase a Lumia smartphone, with more markets being added in the coming weeks and months. Key highlights in the growth of Lumia in the first quarter included:
- In January, Nokia and T-Mobile commenced sales of the Nokia Lumia 710, the first Lumia product for the United States.
- In January, Nokia announced the Nokia Lumia 900 with AT&T in the United States. The Lumia 900 is the first of Nokia’s Windows Phone-based range to feature high-speed LTE connectivity. The device, which has a 4.3-inch AMOLED ClearBlack Display, went on sale in April.
- In February, at the 2012 Mobile World Congress, Nokia announced that it is bringing the Nokia Lumia 900 to other markets outside the United States in a DC-HSPA variant, for high speed data connection (42Mbits download) in countries where LTE is not available. The device is expected to begin shipping during the second quarter.
- In February, Nokia announced the Nokia Lumia 610, the company’s fourth and most affordable Lumia smartphone, designed as the perfect introduction to Windows Phone for a younger audience. The device is expected to ship during the second quarter 2012.
- In February, Nokia announced Nokia Reading, providing a single, integrated reading hub experience. Nokia Reading makes it easier and faster to enjoy news, books, and audio books including an extensive catalogue of local language reading material and the ability to access content offline.
- In March, Nokia and China Telecom announced the Nokia 800C, the first CDMA Windows Phone in China and Nokia’s first Lumia phone for the world’s largest smartphone market. The device went on sale in early April.

- In February, Nokia announced the Nokia 808 PureView, the first smartphone to feature Nokia PureView imaging technologies, bringing together high resolution sensors, exclusive Carl Zeiss optics and Nokia-developed algorithms, which will support new high-end imaging experiences for future Nokia products. The Nokia 808 PureView features a large, high-resolution 41 megapixel sensor and new pixel oversampling technology. The device is expected to ship during the second quarter 2012.

MOBILE PHONES
- Nokia has continued to expand the breadth and depth of its Asha family of feature phones since their debut in late 2011. Consumers in more than 100 markets around the world can now purchase an Asha device. Key highlights in the growth of the Asha family in the first quarter included:
- In February, Nokia announced the Nokia Asha 302, the first Series 40-based phone to support Mail for Exchange. The Asha 302 went on sale during the first quarter.
- In February, Nokia announced the Nokia Asha 202, which combines a traditional keypad with a touch screen and features Nokia’s dual SIM Easy Swap technology. The Asha 202 is expected to ship during the second quarter 2012.
- In February, Nokia announced the Asha 203, a single SIM phone which combines a traditional keypad with a touch screen. The Asha 203 is expected to ship during the second quarter 2012.

- Nokia announced an evolution of Nokia Life Tools, now known as Nokia Life, which provides life-enhancing information across the range of Nokia Series 30 and Series 40 products. Since its 2009 launch in India, the SMS-based service has expanded to China, Indonesia and Nigeria. To date, more than 50 million people have experienced its benefits.
- Nokia Browser, Nokia’s cloud-accelerated browser for Series 40 devices, continued to grow rapidly with support for 38 devices in 87 languages and more than 200 countries. During the first quarter, we released a significant upgrade to the product improving speed and access to web apps. Nokia Browser is the first of its kind to support web apps, and since the release of the SDK in 2011, developer support has continued to grow.

LOCATION & COMMERCE OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS
Nokia’s Location & Commerce business continued to strengthen its location-based offerings during the first quarter:
- Location & Commerce updated Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive for Nokia’s Lumia smartphones twice. With these updates, Nokia Maps now also features a real-time traffic view in selected markets and enables the creation and collection of favorite places as well as route sharing via SMS, email or social networks, while Nokia Drive is now supporting a full offline experience from route calculation to navigation and rerouting. Nokia Drive also features a new dashboard that includes speed limit alerts and provides options between estimated time of arrival, time to destination and distance to destination.
- Location & Commerce launched Nokia Transport, a mobile application for Nokia’s Lumia smartphones providing underground, tram, suburban train and bus directions for more than 500 cities in 46 countries in the most convenient way.
- Location & Commerce released the beta version of Nokia Maps Suite 2.0 for its Nokia Belle smartphones, bundling a number of individual maps applications like Drive, Maps, Public Transport into one convenient package, offering new features such as up-to-date, location-aware weather forecasts, and a home screen widget to explore places nearby and letting people see their geo-tagged photos on the map at the places they were taken.
- Location & Commerce introduced walk navigation (beta) for its HTML5 based mobile web offering on m.maps.nokia.com that lets people use Nokia Maps on non-Nokia devices running Android and iOS.
- Location & Commerce updated Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive for the Nokia N9.
- Location & Commerce launched a new shared map design with Bing Maps, jointly developed with Microsoft.
- Nokia announced that it is planning to integrate Groupon deals into Nokia Maps and leverage location information from Nokia Drive and Nokia Transport, so that people can find local deals in the places they go to most often, or plan to visit.
- Location & Commerce launched NAVTEQ Traffic(TM) in India, making the real-time traffic service available to more than 26 million people in Delhi and Mumbai.
- NAVTEQ® Maps was selected by Yandex, Russia’s premier internet company, to supply map data for their global web portal properties.
- NAVTEQ® Maps was selected by Nikon to power map display and geotagging capabilities on the COOLPIX AW series of digital cameras.

NOKIA SIEMENS NETWORKS OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS
- Nokia Siemens Networks announced a number of mobile broadband deals in the first quarter, including: upgrading Saudi Telecom Company’s nationwide GSM and 3G networks and expanding its commercial 4G network; working with Bharti Airtel to build and operate a large-scale TD-LTE 4G network in Maharashtra, India; transforming mobile broadband efficiency for Telkomsel in Indonesia; becoming a mobile broadband and infrastructure services provider for KT in Korea; and working with T-Mobile and Orange in Poland to deploy and upgrade GSM and HSPA networks, paving the way for transition to LTE.
- Nokia Siemens demonstrated its commitment to staying at the forefront of mobile broadband innovation with the opening of a mobile broadband testing and development facility which opened in Silicon Valley in the United States in February.
- At Mobile World Congress in February, Nokia Siemens Networks launched its “FlexiZone” approach to mobile broadband coverage, which will deliver faster and more flexible 4G across areas with a very high user density more efficiently and cost effectively. During the first quarter the company also achieved world record data speeds, exceeding 1.4 Gbps using its LTE-Advanced 4G system.
- In March, Nokia Siemens Networks and Juniper Networks announced the launch of the “Integrated Packet Transport Network”, addressing the need for service providers to simplify network architecture and giving operators more flexibility in their transport networks in a cost effective way, reflecting Nokia Siemens Networks Liquid Net approach to transforming networks to cope with unpredictability and increasing network demand.
- The launch of the Customer Experience Management (CEM) on Demand portal allowed Nokia Siemens Networks to showcase a new way of handling relationships with the world’s six billion mobile users. The single entry point portal, accessible from across entire operator organizations, is designed to offer dashboard views of mobile operators’ key performance indicators and recommend actions they can take to improve their customer experience. Telkomsel has signed up to use the new service, enabling it to view real-time metrics and provide improved service quality for its customers across Indonesia.
- In Managed Services, Bharti Airtel extended its contract with Nokia Siemens Networks to continue to provide its managed services for a further five years.
- In December 2011, Nokia Siemens Networks signed a forward starting term and multicurrency revolving credit facilities agreement with major international banks for EUR 1 255 million to replace its existing revolving credit facility when it matures in June 2012.  By April 2012 this new commitment had been increased to EUR 1 500 million.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
It should be noted that certain statements herein that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, those regarding: A) the expected plans and benefits of our partnership with Microsoft to bring together complementary assets and expertise to form a global mobile ecosystem for smartphones; B) the timing and expected benefits of our new strategies, including expected operational and financial benefits and targets as well as changes in leadership and operational structure; C) the timing of the deliveries of our products and services; D) our ability to innovate, develop, execute and commercialize new technologies, products and services; E) expectations regarding market developments and structural changes; F) expectations and targets regarding our industry volumes, market share, prices, net sales and margins of our products and services; G expectations and targets regarding our operational priorities and results of operations; H) expectations and targets regarding collaboration and partnering arrangements; I) the outcome of pending and threatened litigation; J) expectations regarding the successful completion of acquisitions or restructurings on a timely basis and our ability to achieve the financial and operational targets set in connection with any such acquisition or restructuring; and K) statements preceded by “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “foresee,” “target,” “estimate,” “designed,” “aim”, “plans,” “will” or similar expressions. These statements are based on management’s best assumptions and beliefs in light of the information currently available to it. Because they involve risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from the results that we currently expect. Factors that could cause these differences include, but are not limited to: 1) our success in the smartphone market, including our ability to introduce and bring to market quantities of attractive, competitively priced Nokia products with Windows Phone that are positively differentiated from our competitors’ products, both outside and within the Windows Phone ecosystem; 2) our ability to make Nokia products with Windows Phone a competitive choice for consumers, and together with Microsoft, our success in encouraging and supporting a competitive and profitable global ecosystem for Windows Phone smartphones that achieves sufficient scale, value and attractiveness to all market participants; 3) the difficulties we experience in having a competitive offering of Symbian devices and maintaining the economic viability of the Symbian smartphone platform during the transition to Windows Phone as our primary smartphone platform; 4) our ability to realize a return on our investment in next generation devices, platforms and user experiences; 5) our ability to produce attractive and competitive feature phones, including devices with more smartphone-like features, in a timely and cost efficient manner with differentiated hardware, software, localized services and applications; 6) the intensity of competition in the various markets where we do business and our ability to maintain or improve our market position or respond successfully to changes in the competitive environment; 7) our ability to retain, motivate, develop and recruit appropriately skilled employees; 8) our ability to effectively and smoothly implement the new operational structure for our businesses, achieve targeted efficiencies and reductions in operating expenses; 9) the success of our Location & Commerce strategy, including our ability to maintain current sources of revenue, provide support for our Devices & Services business and create new sources of revenue from our location-based services and commerce assets; 10) our success in collaboration and partnering arrangements with third parties, including Microsoft; 11) our ability to increase our speed of innovation, product development and execution to bring new innovative and competitive mobile products and location-based or other services to the market in a timely manner; 12) our dependence on the development of the mobile and communications industry, including location-based and other services industries, in numerous diverse markets, as well as on general economic conditions globally and regionally; 13) our ability to protect numerous patented standardized or proprietary technologies from third-party infringement or actions to invalidate the intellectual property rights of these technologies; 14) our ability to maintain and leverage our traditional strengths in the mobile product market if we are unable to retain the loyalty of our mobile operator and distributor customers and consumers as a result of the implementation of our strategies or other factors; 15) the success, financial condition and performance of our suppliers, collaboration partners and customers; 16) our ability to manage efficiently our manufacturing and logistics, as well as to ensure the quality, safety, security and timely delivery of our products and services; 17) our ability to source sufficient amounts of fully functional quality components, sub-assemblies, software and services on a timely basis without interruption and on favorable terms; 18) our ability to manage our inventory and timely adapt our supply to meet changing demands for our products; 19) any actual or even alleged defects or other quality, safety and security issues in our product; 20) the impact of a cybersecurity breach or other factors leading to any actual or alleged loss, improper disclosure or leakage of any personal or consumer data collected by us or our partners or subcontractors, made available to us or stored in or through our products; 21) our ability to successfully manage the pricing of our products and costs related to our products and operations; 22) exchange rate fluctuations, including, in particular, fluctuations between the euro, which is our reporting currency, and the US dollar, the Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan, as well as certain other currencies; 23) our ability to protect the technologies, which we or others develop or that we license, from claims that we have infringed third parties’ intellectual property rights, as well as our unrestricted use on commercially acceptable terms of certain technologies in our products and services; 24) the impact of economic, political, regulatory or other developments on our sales, manufacturing facilities and assets located in emerging market countries; 25) the impact of changes in government policies, trade policies, laws or regulations where our assets are located and where we do business; 26) the potential complex tax issues and obligations we may incur to pay additional taxes in the various jurisdictions in which we do business; 27) any disruption to information technology systems and networks that our operations rely on; 28) unfavorable outcome of litigations;  29) allegations of possible health risks from electromagnetic fields generated by base stations and mobile products and lawsuits related to them, regardless of merit; 30) Nokia Siemens Networks ability to implement its new strategy and restructuring plan effectively and in a timely manner to improve its overall competitiveness and profitability; 31) Nokia Siemens Networks’ success in the telecommunications infrastructure services market and Nokia Siemens Networks’ ability to effectively and profitably adapt its business and operations in a timely manner to the increasingly diverse service needs of its customers; 32) Nokia Siemens Networks’ ability to maintain or improve its market position or respond successfully to changes in the competitive environment; 33) Nokia Siemens Networks’ liquidity and its ability to meet its working capital requirements; 34) Nokia Siemens Networks’ ability to timely introduce new competitive products, services, upgrades and technologies; 35) Nokia Siemens Networks’ ability to execute successfully its strategy for the acquired Motorola Solutions wireless network infrastructure assets; 36) developments under large, multi-year contracts or in relation to major customers in the networks infrastructure and related services business; 37) the management of our customer financing exposure, particularly in the networks infrastructure and related services business; 38) whether ongoing or any additional governmental investigations into alleged violations of law by some former employees of Siemens may involve and affect the carrier-related assets and employees transferred by Siemens to Nokia Siemens Networks; and 39) any impairment of Nokia Siemens Networks customer relationships resulting from ongoing or any additional governmental investigations involving the Siemens carrier-related operations transferred to Nokia Siemens Networks, as well as the risk factors specified on pages 13-47 of Nokia’s annual report Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2011 under Item 3D. “Risk Factors.” Other unknown or unpredictable factors or underlying assumptions subsequently proving to be incorrect could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Nokia does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent legally required.

Nokia, Helsinki – April 19, 2012

Media and Investor Contacts:

Corporate Communications, tel. +358 7180 34900
Investor Relations Europe, tel. +358 7180 34927
Investor Relations US, tel. +1 914 368 0555

- Nokia plans to publish its second quarter 2012 interim report on July 19, 2012.
- Nokia’s Annual General Meeting will be held on May 3, 2012.

www.nokia.com

The Lumia 900 is an excellent handset, whether or not European carriers like it.

But it’s hard to imagine how Nokia and Microsoft plan to achieve a high level of penetration with the phone on a single carrier (AT&T).

Luckily for the partnership, it would seem as though T-Mobile will be getting the Lumia 900 over the course of the summer as well. Andrew Bares over at WMPowerUser sauntered in to a T-Mo store today and a sales rep told him “without interrogation” that the “Lumia 900 will be coming to T-Mobile this summer.”

Hooray!

There had been rumors that the phone was only an AT&T exclusive for the first 45 days of its availability. But, hearing that a T-Mobile rep was confident in the Lumia 900′s arrival on T-Mo is a bit of a confirmation.

Nokia hasn’t had the best year. Of course, the launch of the Lumia line has been refreshing, as Nokia’s much-anticipated Windows Powered offerings are finally out in the world, trying to woo owners like neon-colored puppies in a pet shop window.

The only problem is that four of the major wireless operators in Europe have deemed Nokia’s WP phones “not good enough to compete with Apple’s iPhone or Samsung’s Galaxy phones,” according to Reuters.

The Lumia 710 and 800 have been on sale in Europe since before Christmas, and Europe has long been an easy market for Nokia. But times are a’changin’. One executive interviewed by Reuters said that “no one comes into the store and asks for a Windows Phone.” Which precisely pinpoints Nokia’s biggest issue. If the company was throwing Windows Phone onto its hardware 12-15 months ago, this wouldn’t have been such a big deal — Nokia still had enough market share.

Now, however, Nokia is coming off the slump of all slumps. About a year ago (in May), Nokia saw its lowest market share in 14 years: 25 percent. Windows Phone also hasn’t penetrated the market as strongly as expected, so the partnership is much like two beaten, bruised gazelles teaming up to take on a pack of lions. Not super successful.

But there’s also something to be said about the way the retailers are selling Nokia’s Lumia phones. It wouldn’t be the first time we’d heard about sales reps ignoring Windows Phones, and pushing Android devices or iPhones into the faces of consumers. WPTattleTale.com was started by Windows Phone enthusiast Robert McLaws, who believes that Windows Phone hasn’t been given a chance in stores.

And Reuters reports that a similar situation is occurring in Europe, saying that a store clerk was quick to offer up an iPhone, followed by Samsung and HTC’s Android models to incoming consumers. Lumia models, on the other hand, were not prominently displayed.

So is it the fault of the stores or is it the fault of the device? Probably a hint of both. Specs on the Lumia line can’t compete with those of Android or the iPhone, and those are just the cold hard facts. But in the same vein, Nokia’s WP phones are basically perfect for the new smartphone buyer or anyone looking for a refresh from an old phone.

Time, and the release of Windows Phone Apollo, should tell us if this is a growing pain or a sign of things to come.

Short Version

Guys, this one’s such a no brainer that I shouldn’t even have to lay it all out. But I will.

The Nokia Lumia 900 is an excellent handset, comes packed with a fresh new operating system in the form of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, and thanks to a nifty AT&T bill credit from Nokia, you can essentially get this $100 LTE-equipped phone for free until the 21st. Repeat: for free.

Like I said, this one’s a no brainer.

Features:

• 4.3-inch 480×800 AMOLED display
• AT&T 4G LTE
• Windows Phone 7.5 Mango
• 1.4GHz single-core processor
• 8MP rear camera (720p video capture)
• 1MP front camera
• MSRP: $100 on-contract (or free through April 21)

Pros:

• Beautiful unibody polycarbonate casing (matte)
• Well-built and premium feeling in the hand
• Windows Phone is a refreshing joy to use

Cons:

• Poor color reproduction on the camera
• The display is a bit pixelated
• If thin and light is your thing, this may feel clunky

Long Version

Hardware/Design:

The hardware on the Lumia 900 is top-notch. Nokia truly stepped it up, which says quite a bit considering that well-built hardware is one of the Finnish company’s fortes. The weight distribution is balanced, which allows the Lumia 900 to stand up on its own should you place it on the table.

It has rounded edges along the side, with a flat top and bottom. The matte finish feels great in the hand, and Nokia actually built the phone with blue and black materials so even a deep scratch shouldn’t leave an ugly mark. The volume, camera, and lock buttons on my review unit felt a bit loose in their sockets, but I’m fairly certain that’s my only complaint.

Micro USB is square on the top of the phone, and it always bothers me when phone makers get in the way of playing games while plugged in (battery suffers most during gaming, so we plug a lot as we play at home), but at least the design is beautiful.

The battery isn’t removable, but battery life is better than expected on this little smurf so I don’t see it as a huge setback.

To be honest, the phone is a bit bulkier than most of its competition but I see this as a good thing. It’s not cumbersome by any means, and actually feels a bit more expensive than an LG Spectrum or any other super light, super thin phone.

Software:

I’ve got a thing for Windows Phone. I’m honestly not sure where it came from — I’ve never been a huge Microsoft user — but I feel lucky to have seen the light.

Now, there are inherent cons that come along with Windows Phone, for now. For example, you won’t find as many apps on the Marketplace as you would on Android or iOS (though that number is growing, and Microsoft is banking on quality over quantity). Another issue is locked-down specs, which happen to be just a bit outdated, that Windows Phone partners must abide by. One of those — the worst one, I feel — is a 480×800 display resolution, which bums me out on a 4.3-inch screen.

But, Microsoft is adding more high-res options with the launch of Apollo, though that won’t help you much with the Lumia 900.

But back to the point.

The baked-in features of Windows Phone are excellent. Threaded messaging is far and away my favorite, as it lets you conduct conversations with friends over a variety of formats (Facebook chat, text, Windows Live messenger) all from one unified stream. Local Scout, powered by Bing, is a welcome alternative to Yelp, and the People and Me hubs make me actually enjoy social networking. Of course, there’s still work to be done here, but if you haven’t given Windows Phone a chance I highly recommend checking out this emulator on your phone and seeing if you perchance have a crush on the new kid on the block.

Nokia also added some smart software to the phone including a contacts transfer app, which will help you transition from Android, iOS or BlackBerry.

Camera:

Now for a little bad news, if I may.

I love the UI of the camera app, to be sure, but the actual images produced by the Lumia 900 camera aren’t all that great.

Here’s what I’m noticing: When you open up the camera and look through the viewfinder, everything looks beautiful. Whatever you see in the viewfinder is almost identical to what you’re seeing in real life, in front of the lens. But once you snap the picture, the image produced instantly changes color. This happens most frequently on Auto, and adjusting the settings based on your environment will help this.

But the fact of the matter is, we take pictures quickly on our phones and don’t often want to mess around with settings unless we have the time. (None of us have the time.) Furthermore, some settings don’t quite match up with what you’d expect. White Balance in particular was a bit janky. That said, I wish color reproduction were a bit better.

On the other hand, I do like the physical shutter button on the side of the phone. It lets you half-press to focus, just as you would on an SLR, and then full-press to capture.

Video recording was smooth and I have no real complaints there.

Display:

Here’s the thing with this display. It’s the same exact size and resolution as the Galaxy S II (though the Lumia has an AMOLED display as opposed to a Super AMOLED Plus display), which was considered a beast for the past year. With the Galaxy S III on the horizon and 720p displays flooding the market, I’d be hard-pressed to recommend this phone to anyone who’s recently upgraded to a new super phone. In tech, it’s very difficult to go backwards.

At the same time, upgraders coming off of a one- to two-year-old phone shouldn’t have too much of a problem unless you’re really keen on display issues. Graphic artists and designers, for example, will surely notice the pixelated resolution. And Windows Phone only compounds that. It’s heavy on images, even on the home screen, and white text on a black background makes the resolution look even choppier.

However, one important win for the Lumia 900 display is its ClearBlack technology. I was able to use the phone in bright, direct sunlight (with my sunglasses on, mind you) and had absolutely no problem viewing everything on the display. I think this is a pretty big deal, since every phone I’ve ever used becomes really difficult to view in sunlight.

Performance:

It’s tough to measure the Lumia 900 against Android phones or the iPhone simply because any of the benchmarking we’d do would be irrelevant anyways — they’re different platforms. But I will tell you this: The Lumia 900, and specifically Windows Phone, is snappier than any Android phone I’ve ever played with.

Granted, animations and transitions are a half a second longer than they are on Android, but they’re beautiful and as a whole, the OS never shows any sort of lag. Pair that kind of speed with a little 4G LTE radio, and the Lumia 900 surely won’t disappoint in the performance department.

I’m also a big fan of the IE9 mobile browser in this bad boy. It’s quick like lightning, as proven by its BrowserMark score of 28769.

Battery:

Battery life on the Lumia 900 is actually quite impressive. In real-world scenarios the phone lasts through the entire day, even with 4G on the entire time. It seems like phone makers are finally figuring out what it takes to make 4G viable in the battery department, and we’re glad to see it.

As far as official testing goes, the Lumia 900 lasted a full five hours. Our testing includes a non-stop Google Image search — the phone never sleeps or rests from 100 percent green to death. At any point I can make a call, play a game, or browse the web, all of which I did with the Lumia.

To give you a little context, the Droid 4 only hung in there for three hours and forty-five minutes while the Droid RAZR Maxx (Motorola’s battery beast) stayed with me for a staggering eight hours and fifteen minutes.

Head-To-Head With The Lumia 800 and iPhone 4S:

Check out our thoughts on this match-up here.

Hands-On Video: Initial Impressions

Conclusion

My editors always tell me to close these reviews with a definitive stance, as I should, but this phone makes it difficult. I wouldn’t, and couldn’t, tell a smartphone enthusiast who’s been using a Galaxy Nexus or iPhone 4S to upgrade to this, simply because it wouldn’t be an upgrade. You’d notice the camera issues right off the bat, and the screen would probably bug you.

But this doesn’t make the Lumia 900 a bad phone at all. It’s a great phone. Nokia kicks ass at call reception, and while the specs are a bit outdated, hardware is beautiful and sturdy. As I said before, anyone coming off of a phone over a year old would be lucky to own a Lumia 900.

Especially for free.

Check out all of our Lumia 900 review posts here.

Nokia certainly didn’t waste any time when it came to fixing that pesky data connection bug that popped up in a few first-run Lumia 900s. Just two days after Nokia acknowledged the issue and pledged to make things right, they’ve already made that critical update available to those in need. In case you were keeping track, that’s a full three days before Nokia promised to have the fix in the field.

Not too shabby, Nokia.

The cynic in me wants to say that the Finnish phone giant could have talked up the original date in order to give understandably upset customers a pleasant surprise, but all that really matters is that the update is out and the Lumia 900′s first crisis is over. If you haven’t already swapped out for handset for a less screwy one, all it takes to perform the update is plug it into your computer — if you’ve already got the Zune software (for PCs) or the Windows Phone 7 Connector (for Mac) installed, you’ll be prompted to update and that’s that.

Those of you on the fence about buying a Lumia 900 may as well bite the bullet now. Nokia’s rather awesome $100 bill credit will continue to run until the 21st and a little scouting around will ensure that you fiscally come out ahead. Perhaps more importantly, customers didn’t have to rely on AT&T for a fix, a trend that hopefully continues for any major updates that should come down the line. AT&T has proven themselves to be a little lax when it comes to pushing updates to Windows Phones, but with Nokia once again gunning for some American limelight, they may try and fill in any of those gaps themselves.

Nokia has been weathering a series of glitches around the launch of its Lumia range of Windows Phone devices — the most recent of which saw the company issue credits to users affected by data connection issues on the new Lumia 900. It is pressing on with new devices, though, and we have confirmed with sources close to the company that it will be launching its first NFC-enabled Windows Phone in Europe, a version of the Lumia 610, at 1pm UK time today — along with a partnership with a European operator, France Telecom’s Orange, to launch the device “across Europe.”

Update: Orange and Nokia have now officially announced the 610. The details are noted as below. The pair say that the device has been certified for contactless payments both with MasterCard PayPass technology, and with Visa’s mobile application for payments at the point of sale, Visa payWave, which means it will work when activated and used with merchants that have linked up with this technology.

Nokia first unveiled the phone accidentally via a video on YouTube, which it then made private. Before it did that, a copy of it was made by TheGadgetBuff and picked up by The Next Web, which also published a photo of a display noting a 2pm launch. We have confirmed with sources that the launch is taking place at 1pm UK time.

The source told us the device will be launching with an operator, and in the video (embedded below) Nokia’s lead program manager for NFC, Andrea Bociaccola, says that the operator is Orange. We have confirmed that the launch will be “across Europe” according to our well-placed source.  It is not clear whether this launch is going to be in one of Orange’s market or several Orange has mobile operations throughout Europe, including the UK, as well as Africa and the Middle East.

Orange has made a big push into rolling out NFC in its home market of France, and more recently has also committed to services in the UK. In March the company said it had sold 500,000 NFC-enabled handsets in France — a mix of Samsung, Acer and BlackBerry devices. Rollouts of actual commercial services to use them more widely, however, have been slower in coming.

Today’s launch, it appears, was scheduled to take place in Monaco at the Global NFC Products, Applications & Services Congress, where Nokia’s VP of product marketing and smart devices, Ilari Nurmi; and Orange’s mobile contactless services director, Didier Durand, are scheduled to speak together at 2pm Monaco time. TechCrunch understands that may now be moved forward in light of the video leak.

Bociaccola demonstrates how the NFC can be used with (Nokia) speakers to manage music, and he notes that in future it can also be used for monetary transactions — although this doesn’t seem to be something that will be available at launch.

It will also be usable with Foursquare check-ins, judging by the video, as well as to interact with other social networks (eg ‘tap to follow us on Twitter’).

Nokia was one of the first handset makers to incorporate NFC into mobile phones. However, up to now NFC has not gained much critical mass among other handset makers, merchants and others that might utilize the technology (like other consumer electronics companies) — so Nokia hasn’t had much of an early mover advantage as a result.

On top of that, there have been a multitude of solutions rolled out that bypass NFC altogether (Square and PayPal’s Here being two notable examples). That raises the question of whether NFC really will be as central to mobile commerce and other kinds of mobile transactions as people once thought it would be.

However there are plenty of companies out there putting big stakes into NFC, including the big payment processors as well as Nokia competitors, and so it’s an important area to keep pursuing.

Nokia’s putting NFC into the 610 means also that Nokia is continuing to forge ahead and make sure that it’s bringing along some of its legacy innovation into the next stage of its strategy to remain relevant in the mobile world.

Microsoft and Nokia have a lot riding on the success of their flagship Lumia 900 Windows Phone, but the usual new gadget honeymoon period has been cut short for more than a few unsatisfied customers. Shortly after devices started going home with their new owners, reports of dead data connections began appearing on Nokia’s support forums.

Well, Nokia knows about the issue and they’re not taking things laying down. AllThingsD spoke to Nokia U.S. chief Chris Weber, who stated that the company was hard at work on a fix and that Nokia would be issuing $100 credits to the bills of all Lumia 900 owners as a gesture of goodwill.

That credit effectively means that plenty of purchasers got their Lumia 900s for free, and some lucky Lumia owners will have actually come out ahead after taking the plunge on some new hardware. What’s more, anyone who buys a Lumia 900 between now and April 21 will be eligible for the credit too, which makes for quite a deal if you’re willing to contend with the potential risks.

That loathsome little software bug will be addressed in a forthcoming software update, and anyone who chooses to will be able to swing by an AT&T store so they can swap for a clean unit. The fix isn’t expected to see the light of day until around April 16th though, so afflicted customers in need of those sweet, sweet LTE speeds should return to place of purchase with receipt in hand for an exchange. If you’ve somehow forged a deep bond with your 900 though, you can also try some of the potential workarounds being shared by similarly stymied Lumia owners.

Weber goes on to mention that the problem isn’t due to flawed hardware or network issues on AT&T’s part — rather, a memory management issue is responsible for those flaky data connections. I’d really love a more technical explanation as to why things went down the way they did, but I suppose Nokia has more pressing issues to tend to in the meantime. It’s quite a hiccup for a device that multiple companies have pinned their hopes on, but Nokia deserves credit for tackling the issue as quickly and as thoughtfully as they have.

The Nokia Lumia 900 train is rocking. After its first stop in the US on Easter Sunday, the party moved north of the border where Rogers is now selling the supersized Windows Phone. However, in a few short weeks, the phone will hit the UK on April 27th through Phones4U and Carphone Warehouse. It can be pre-ordered today.

The Canadian version is nearly identical to the one hawked by AT&T in the states including the CA$99 price — expect that’s with a 3-year contract. The rest is the same though including LTE connectivity and Windows 7.5. It’s more of the same in the UK where the only major difference involves the inclusion of HSPA+ instead of LTE.

The Lumia 900 is hitting at an awkward time. It’s a fine device but those looking for a new phone might want to wait a bit longer to see the upcoming competitors. The Samsung Galaxy SIII is rumored to be announced later this month and then of course the iPhone 5 could drop this summer. Patience is a virtue, you know. That said, I’m completely enamored by the Lumia 900. Windows Phone is so efficient and the few native apps are beautiful on the large and bright screen. I just the camera was on par with the one in the iPhone 4S. If you must get a new phone now, the Lumia 900 deserves a look even if it’s on AT&T.

The most notable fruit of Microsoft and Nokia’s close working relationship is certainly the handsome line of Lumia Windows Phones, but the deal has had its share of fringe benefits as well.

Take its impact on Symbian for instance — Microsoft announced last September that they would be giving the platform a shot in the arm with the initially Windows Phone-only Office productivity suite, and now they’ve made good on their word with the release of their Microsoft Office Mobile apps.

Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are all present and accounted for, and while I don’t need to tell you what they’re meant to do, Nokia points out a few thoughtful features on their Conversations blog. Word Mobile retains proper formatting for tables and images, for example, while Excel plays nice with formulae inputted on the small screen and Powerpoint lets users add presentation notes and skim through slides in Outline mode.

The update is limited to Symbian Belle devices, and owners of the Nokia 701, Nokia 700, Nokia 603, Nokia E7, Nokia X7, Nokia C7, Nokia Oro, or Nokia C6-01 will have first crack at them — they’re but a quick software update away. Users on the run can perform the necessary update on the device itself or via the Nokia Suite on a computer when things settle down a bit. If you’re not in a huge rush to pore over your spreadsheets on the metro though, feel free to wait for the app to hit the Nokia Store in the coming weeks.

Nokia also plans to bring the productivity love to a few more handsets, with devices like the Nokia N8, Nokia E6, and the Nokia 500 currently on the shortlist. Meanwhile, those of you lucky (or crazy) enough to consider purchasing the 808 PureView won’t have to worry about software updates or app downloads at all — the full complement of Office apps will come preloaded on the hefty handset.