STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Finnish telecoms equipment supplier Nokia (HE 🙂 reported a 9% rise in third-quarter operating profit on Thursday and echoed rival Ericsson (BS 🙂 in seeing a recovery in demand in some areas.
“I am optimistic that we are now improving in many parts of our business, even if some continue to experience market weakness,” CEO Pekka Lundmark said in a statement.
Nokia maintained its full-year outlook and said it expects a significant acceleration of growth in the fourth quarter in its network infrastructure business.
Comparable earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) rose to 454 million euros ($492.73 million) from 418 million euros last year, beating the 424 million euros expected by analysts in an LSEG survey.
Comparable gross margin increased from 40.8% to 45.7% thanks to cost cuts and the sale of more equipment to high-margin markets.
Net sales fell 8% to €4.33 billion, mainly due to lower sales to India. Demand from Indian customers has fallen significantly this year after accelerated growth last year.
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