Nokia being sluggish on 5G, impacted on its revenue.

Finnish telecom vendor Nokia reported a disappointing Q1 of flat revenue and expanding loss. The company blamed competition and slow ramp-up of 5G.

Nokia reported a modest 2% net sales growth to reach €5.032 billion over €4.924 billion of Q1 2018, which would be down by 2% on constant currency basis. The gross margin was at 31.3%, down from 36.7% a year ago. The operating loss increased from €336 million (or -6.8% of net sales) to €524 million (-10.4%). Net cash was depleted by more than half from €4.179 billion to €1.991 billion. Earnings per share went from positive €0.02 to negative €0.02.

Rajeev Suri, the President and CEO of Nokia, conceded that "Q1 was a weak quarter for Nokia." Meanwhile, the company believes that its fortunes will improve in the rest of the year, especially in the second half.  "As the year progresses, we expect meaningful topline and margin improvements. 5G revenues are expected to grow sharply, particularly in the second half of the year, driven by our 36 commercial wins to date."

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