Helsinki. Finland's Nokia, struggling to remain the world's top mobile phone maker, last week posted deep losses for both the full year of 2011 and for the fourth quarter amid slumping handset sales.

For all of 2011, the company posted a net loss of €1.2 billion ($1.5 billion), compared to a net profit of €1.8 billion a year earlier.

Its fourth quarter meanwhile saw a net loss of €1.07 billion compared to a profit of €745 million in the final quarter of 2010. Net sales for the October-December period slumped 21 percent year-on-year to €10.0 billion while sales for the full year were down nine percent at €38.66 billion.

Nonetheless, Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop, who has been leading the company through a major restructuring, described the fourth quarter results as "a significant step in Nokia's transformation."

"While we progressed in the right direction in 2011, we still have a tremendous amount to accomplish in 2012, and thus, it is my assessment that we are in the heart of our transition," he said in the earnings statement.

Meanwhile Elop, who last February announced the phasing out of Symbian as Nokia's smartphone platform in favour of a partnership with Microsoft, said he was pleased with the company's launch of its first phones on the Microsoft platform - the Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 710 - in the fourth quarter.

"We brought the new devices to market ahead of schedule, demonstrating that we are changing the clock speed of Nokia," he said, pointing out that "to date, we have introduced Lumia to consumers in Europe, Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan."

Nokia said it had sold "well over one million" of the new Lumia phones since the launch in October.

Nokia is depending heavily on the new phones to help it maintain its ranking as the world's largest mobile phone maker as it operates in a rapidly changing landscape and has in recent years seen RiM's Blackberry, Apple's iPhone and handsets running Google's Android platform take growing bites out of its market share.

The former undisputed world leader announced last year it would no longer provide market share figures but for the second quarter of 2011 analysts put its share at 23 per cent, compared with a peak of 40 percent in the first half of 2008.

Going forward, Nokia said Thursday its Devices and Services division, which includes its all-important smartphone business, would show an operating margin in the first quarter "around breakeven, ranging either above or below by approximately two percentage points." (Agencies)

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites