Tobi Ijalana
Finnish multinational telecommunications, Nokia, has reported an unexpected loss in its battle to dominate the upcoming launch of faster 5G wireless networks.
Nokia’s loss for the first three months of 2019 was €116m (£100m) in what the chief executive Rajeev Suri said was a bit of a perfect storm.
This is coming after the company’s biggest rivals, Swedish telecoms firm Ericsson and Chinese firm Huawei, both posted revenue and profits growth.
Telegraph.co.uk reports that Nokia’s shares fell as much as 11pc in early trading on Thursday which is their lowest level in six months.
Suri said some rivals were seeking to be more commercially aggressive in the early stages of 5G.
Nokia added it had secured 36 commercial contract wins for 5G technology to date.
The new network technology is expected to provide mobile data speeds of anywhere between 10 and100 times current rates and enable new technologies.
Sales for Nokia increased 2pc to €5bn. The company said it expected profits to increase as sales of 5G picked up later in the year and as a €700m cost plan took effect.
