Nokia comments on Moody's credit rating announcement
Espoo, Finland - Timo Ihamuotila, Nokia's Executive Vice President and CFO,
comments on today's rating decision from Moody's:
"While we are disappointed with Moody's decision, its impact on the company is
limited. We are quickly taking action to position Nokia for future growth and
success. Nokia will continue to focus on lowering the company's cost structure
rapidly, improving cash flow and maintaining a strong financial position."
Nokia's financial position remains strong. As of June 30 2012, Nokia had gross a
cash balance of EUR 9.4 billion, and a net cash balance of EUR 4.2 billion both
balances being higher than one year ago. Nokia also has access to additional
liquidity via a revolving credit facility of EUR 1.5 billion. This is entirely
undrawn and available to the company through March 2016.
Further information on Nokia's debt instruments can be found in the company's Q2
2012 Interim Report issued on July 19, 2012.
About Nokia
Nokia is a global leader in mobile communications whose products have become an
integral part of the lives of people around the world. Every day, more than 1.3
billion people use their Nokia to capture and share experiences, access
information, find their way or simply to speak to one another. Nokia's
technological and design innovations have made its brand one of the most
recognized in the world. For more information, visit http://www.nokia.com/about-
nokia
Forward Looking Statements
It should be noted that certain statements herein that are not historical facts
are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, those regarding:
A) the expected plans and benefits of our partnership with Microsoft to bring
together complementary assets and expertise to form a global mobile ecosystem
for smartphones; B) the timing and expected benefits of our new strategies,
including expected operational and financial benefits and targets as well as
changes in leadership and operational structure; C) the timing of the deliveries
of our products and services; D) our ability to innovate, develop, execute and
commercialize new technologies, products and services; E) expectations regarding
market developments and structural changes; F) expectations and targets
regarding our industry volumes, market share, prices, net sales and margins of
our products and services; G) expectations and targets regarding our operational
priorities and results of operations; H) expectations and targets regarding
collaboration and partnering arrangements; I) the outcome of pending and
threatened litigation; J) expectations regarding the successful completion of
restructurings, investments, acquisitions and divestments on a timely basis and
our ability to achieve the financial and operational targets set in connection
with any such restructurings, investments, acquisitions and divestments; and K)
statements preceded by "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "foresee," "target,"
"estimate," "designed," "aim", "plans," "intends," "will" or similar
expressions. These statements are based on management's best assumptions and
beliefs in light of the information currently available to it. Because they
involve risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from the
results that we currently expect. Factors that could cause these differences
include, but are not limited to:Â 1) our success in the smartphone market,
including our ability to introduce and bring to market quantities of attractive,
competitively priced Nokia products with Windows Phone that are positively
differentiated from our competitors' products, both outside and within the
Windows Phone ecosystem; 2) our ability to make Nokia products with Windows
Phone a competitive choice for consumers, and together with Microsoft, our
success in encouraging and supporting a competitive and profitable global
ecosystem for Windows Phone smartphones that achieves sufficient scale, value
and attractiveness to all market participants; 3) reduced consumer demand for
Nokia smartphones that operate on current versions of the Windows Phone platform
as consumers anticipate our launch and sales ramp-up of Nokia smartphones with
newer versions of the Windows Phone platform available from Microsoft,
specifically the new Windows Phone 8 operating system; 4) the difficulties we
experience in having a competitive offering of Symbian devices and maintaining
the economic viability of the Symbian smartphone platform during the transition
to Windows Phone as our primary smartphone platform; 5) our ability to
effectively and timely implement planned changes to our operational structure,
including the planned restructuring measures, and to successfully complete the
planned investments, acquisitions and divestments in order to improve our
operating model and achieve targeted efficiencies and reductions in operating
expenses; 6) our future sales performance, among other factors, may require us
to recognize allowances related to excess component inventory, future purchase
commitments and inventory write-offs in our Devices & Services business; 7)
our ability to realize a return on our investment in next generation devices,
platforms and user experiences; 8) our ability to produce attractive and
competitive feature phones, including devices with more smartphone-like
features, in a timely and cost efficient manner with differentiated hardware,
software, localized services and applications; 9) the intensity of competition
in the various markets where we do business and our ability to maintain or
improve our market position or respond successfully to changes in the
competitive environment; 10) our ability to retain, motivate, develop and
recruit appropriately skilled employees; 11) the success of our Location &
Commerce strategy, including our ability to maintain current sources of revenue,
provide support for our Devices & Services business and create new sources of
revenue from our location-based services and commerce assets; 12) our actual
performance in the short-term and long-term could be materially different from
our forecasts, which could impact future estimates of recoverable value of our
reporting units and may result in impairment charges; 13) our success in
collaboration and partnering arrangements with third parties, including
Microsoft; 14) our ability to increase our speed of innovation, product
development and execution to bring new innovative and competitive mobile
products and location-based or other services to the market in a timely manner;
15) our dependence on the development of the mobile and communications industry,
including location-based and other services industries, in numerous diverse
markets, as well as on general economic conditions globally and regionally; 16)
our ability to protect numerous patented standardized or proprietary
technologies from third-party infringement or actions to invalidate the
intellectual property rights of these technologies; 17) our ability to maintain
and leverage our traditional strengths in the mobile product market if we are
unable to retain the loyalty of our mobile operator and distributor customers
and consumers as a result of the implementation of our strategies or other
factors; 18) the success, financial condition and performance of our suppliers,
collaboration partners and customers; 19) our ability to manage efficiently our
manufacturing and logistics, as well as to ensure the quality, safety, security
and timely delivery of our products and services; 20) our ability to source
sufficient amounts of fully functional quality components, sub-assemblies,
software and services on a timely basis without interruption and on favorable
terms; 21) our ability to manage our inventory and timely adapt our supply to
meet changing demands for our products; 22) any actual or even alleged defects
or other quality, safety and security issues in our products; 23) the impact of
a cybersecurity breach or other factors leading to any actual or alleged loss,
improper disclosure or leakage of any personal or consumer data collected by us
or our partners or subcontractors, made available to us or stored in or through
our products; 24) our ability to successfully manage the pricing of our products
and costs related to our products and operations; 25) exchange rate
fluctuations, including, in particular, fluctuations between the euro, which is
our reporting currency, and the US dollar, the Japanese yen and the Chinese
yuan, as well as certain other currencies; 26) our ability to protect the
technologies, which we or others develop or that we license, from claims that we
have infringed third parties' intellectual property rights, as well as our
unrestricted use on commercially acceptable terms of certain technologies in our
products and services; 27) the impact of economic, political, regulatory or
other developments on our sales, manufacturing facilities and assets located in
emerging market countries; 28) the impact of changes in government policies,
trade policies, laws or regulations where our assets are located and where we do
business; 29) the potential complex tax issues and obligations we may incur to
pay additional taxes in the various jurisdictions in which we do business and
our actual or anticipated performance, among other factors, could result in
allowances related to deferred tax assets; 30) any disruption to information
technology systems and networks that our operations rely on; 31) unfavorable
outcome of litigations;Â 32) allegations of possible health risks from
electromagnetic fields generated by base stations and mobile products and
lawsuits related to them, regardless of merit; 33) Nokia Siemens Networks
ability to implement its new strategy and restructuring plan effectively and in
a timely manner to improve its overall competitiveness and profitability; 34)
Nokia Siemens Networks' success in the telecommunications infrastructure
services market and Nokia Siemens Networks' ability to effectively and
profitably adapt its business and operations in a timely manner to the
increasingly diverse service needs of its customers; 35) Nokia Siemens Networks'
ability to maintain or improve its market position or respond successfully to
changes in the competitive environment; 36) Nokia Siemens Networks' liquidity
and its ability to meet its working capital requirements; 37) Nokia Siemens
Networks' ability to timely introduce new competitive products, services,
upgrades and technologies; 38) Nokia Siemens Networks' ability to execute
successfully its strategy for the acquired Motorola Solutions wireless network
infrastructure assets; 39) developments under large, multi-year contracts or in
relation to major customers in the networks infrastructure and related services
business; 40) the management of our customer financing exposure, particularly in
the networks infrastructure and related services business; 41) whether ongoing
or any additional governmental investigations into alleged violations of law by
some former employees of Siemens may involve and affect the carrier-related
assets and employees transferred by Siemens to Nokia Siemens Networks; and 42)
any impairment of Nokia Siemens Networks customer relationships resulting from
ongoing or any additional governmental investigations involving the Siemens
carrier-related operations transferred to Nokia Siemens Networks, as well as the
risk factors specified on pages 13-47 of Nokia's annual report on Form 20-F for
the year ended December 31, 2011 under Item 3D. "Risk Factors." Other unknown or
unpredictable factors or underlying assumptions subsequently proving to be
incorrect could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the
forward-looking statements. Nokia does not undertake any obligation to publicly
update or revise forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new
information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent legally required.
Media Enquiries:
Nokia
Communications
Tel. +358 7180 34900
Email: press.services@nokia.com
www.nokia.com
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Source: NOKIA via Thomson Reuters ONE
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