It's earnings day today, and already embattled Nokia has seen its shares plunge once again. Nokia announced that not only was the last quarter bad, but that the rest of 2004 will continue to be bad. Investors replied by sending the stock (NOK) in a downward spiral, nearly -13% as of this writing.
Nokia's profits were actually up, but raw sales were down. When that is combined with lower prices to compete, the profits in future quarters are looking down.
Nokia said its April-June earnings per share (EPS) slumped to 0.15 euro from an underlying 0.19 euro a year ago, but excluding a one time gain totaling 0.03 euro from an asset sale, the figure was below all estimates.
Sales fell five percent to 6.64 billion euros ($8.20 billion), slightly above the average analyst forecast.
Om Malik offers some analysis on the matter.