Nokia is in free fall with their shares crashing 15 percent last night.This year consumers have deserted the brand in droves, as Nokia handsets are replaced by a new generation of Apple and Google Android handsets. The overnight crash has seen the Nokia share value fall to the same levels the company shares were at in 1998 when the Nokia brand was making a name for itself in the emerging mobile phone market.
Gartner analyst Caroline Milanesi said that the Finnish company is probably yet to hit its lowest ebb.
“It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” she said. “The second quarter should be the worst – if it isn’t then they have worse problems than we thought they did.
“In the third and fourth quarter this year there will be new products. If they can’t get traction with those then it will be a big issue.
The share crash happened very quickly after Nokia was forced to restate its profit forecasts for the forthcoming quarter, admitting it may only break even between April and June 2011.
The crisis-hit Finns admitted that profits will be “substantially lower” than the 6 – 9 percent margin it had initially expected, due to faltering handset sales across the globe.
On top of that, Nokia, who recently got into bed with Microsoft are also facing major phone issues, and has also decided it is no longer a good idea to make forecasts for the rest of the year.
Some analysts predict that the company could even post a loss for the first time in over a decade.
