What investors need to keep in mind is that raw, year-over-year comparisons would look atrocious if not adjusted for that handset sale to Microsoft. All three remaining units turned in sales growth.
Nokia Networks saw 13% sales growth, up to €2.9 billion from €2.6 billion. Its non-IFRS operating profit was €397 million, or 13.5% of net sales, versus €217 million, or 8.4% of net sales, a year ago.
HERE, Nokia’s mapping effort, saw 12% year-over-year sales growth to €236 million, selling map data licenses for the embedded navigation systems of 3.2 million new vehicles globally.
Nokia Technologies saw sales grow 9% to €152 million, which Nokia said was primarily due to Microsoft becoming a more significant intellectual property licensee.
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Nokia ended the third quarter with a strong balance sheet and solid cash position with gross cash of €7.6 billion and net cash of €5.0 billion. This was against €9.0 billion and €6.5 billion, respectively, at the end of the second quarter of 2014 — after a special dividend payment in the third quarter.
Another boost came from Nokia’s guidance. The technology outfit now expects Nokia Networks’ non-IFRS operating margin for 2014 to be slightly above 11%, versus a prior outlook for it to be at or slightly above the higher end of a range of 5% to 10%. Nokia further said that it continues to see Nokia Networks’ net sales to grow in the second half 2014.
Nokia remains a mystery company to many American investors who buy and sell its American depositary shares (ADSs). The company is entirely different now that it has sold its floundering handset business to Microsoft. It also has many ADS investors who have been buried in a “long and wrong” trade. That being said, Nokia’s ADSs in New York were up nearly 6% at $8.38 around the 12:30 p.m.
Investors should consider one thing here, and that is that at least two analysts in the mid-quarter period were looking for big upside from Nokia.
Canaccord Genuity’s T. Michael Walkley and Siddharth Sinha increased their Nokia price target (for New York ADSs that is) to $12 from $11 while maintaining their Buy rating in mid-September. This matches the upside price target call from Oppenheimer the week before. Seeing an analyst team ratchet a price target up $1 might not seem like much, but Nokia is deep in a turnaround and the sum of the parts analysis echoed much of what Oppenheimer said at the time.
Nokia’s ADSs have a 52-week trading range of $6.64 to $8.73.
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