Nokia bears final Microsoft-free quarter, announces losses

Nokia Windows Phone devices can't come soon enough.

The Finnish phone maker today announced third-quarter losses of 71 million euro (approximately $98 million), and has been in not far now! mode since dropping its allegiance to Symbian and announcing a new partnership with Microsoft early this year. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is expected to finally introduce the phones at Nokia World in London next week, dragging the company across a finish line of sorts before starting up a new race — ideally, one in which it bests the also-struggling Research In Motion for a third-place position for mindshare and market share with both the carriers and consumers.

But, first things first.

"I am encouraged by the progress we made during Q3, while noting that there are still many important steps ahead in our journey of transformation," Elop said in a statement.

To position Nokia for the future, Elop continued, "difficult but necessary" changes are being implemented, which have included "structural changes" and layoffs. During the quarter, it launched its first smartphones running Symbian Belle (as it needs to continue supporting the OS a few years longer) and gained a bit of traction with its dual-SIM devices.

However slowly, things are shifting in the right direction. While a loss of 71 million euro stings — particularly compared to profits of 403 million euro a year ago — it's a veritable delight compared to the 487 million euro Nokia lost just a quarter earlier. And while the do-no-wrong Apple had analysts setting expectations so high that it actually failed to meet estimates (CP: Apple disappoints a high-shooting Wall Street, breaks records nonetheless), Nokia managed to beat the meager projections set for it, selling nearly 107 million handsets, versus the expected 94 million.

"I am encouraged by our progress around the first Nokia experience with Windows Phone, and we look forward to bringing the experience to consumers in select countries later this quarter," Elop said, in a now-familiar message. "We then intend to systematically increase the number of countries and launch partners during the course of 2012."

In the fourth quarter, he added, he expects Nokia to return to profit.

With Nokia's Windows Phone devices set to premiere in just days, Andy Lees, speaking at this week's Asia D event, confirmed that the phones will feature near-field communications (NFC) technology, he confirmed that Microsoft — intending to play nice with its carrier partners, unlike Google — will make it easy for users to take advantage of mobile payment solutions, but has no plans to develop such a solution itself.

"We're not trying to compete with other people who are trying to provide services," Lees said, "but we will provide the platform."