Microsoft Q2 results negatively impacted by Nokia losses

Microsoft announced a seven per cent fall in its quarterly profits, as its performance was hurt by losses at its new Nokia handset division.

The company said that profits fell to US$4.6 billion, from US$4.97 billion a year, ago, thanks largely to a US$692 million loss at Nokia handsets.

Last week the company announced 12,500 job cuts at the Nokia division, as well as 5,500 redundancies across the rest of the company as it starts to tie the handsets division into the rest of the company’s services.

The company has around 127,000 employees.

Revenues for the quarter came in at US$23.4 billion, compared to US$19.9 billion a year ago. The Nokia business contributed US$1.99 billion to current year revenue.

Microsoft sold 5.8 million Lumia smartphones, and 30.3 million non-Lumia phones following the completion of the Nokia acquisition. Low price point devices drove a majority of the Lumia smartphone volumes, while non-Lumia phone volumes were simply said to have "performed in line with the market for this category of devices".