Nokia in Q2 2012: A lighter balance sheet, and a free OS

I’m not doing a full analysis of Nokia Q2 2012 results here. Very briefly, Nokia group revenues were 7.5 billion EUR with a loss of 1.53 billion EUR. A billion plus euro loss cannot be very rosy, of course, but maybe investors expected worse, as the stock price spiked up briefly after the announcements of the results on Thursday, 19 July.

Revenue & Profitability has taken a hit for the last one year, when the strategy of shifting from Symbian & Meego OS’es to Windows Phone has gone disastrously wrong for the company. A very detailed analysis of this strategy gone wrong can be found on Tomi Ahonen’s communities-dominate blog. As for this current post, the chart below tracking Nokia revenues is enough to describe the problem.

Nokia revenues - falling since 2011.

But in this post I try to delve into some of the revelations in the Q2 earnings release.

4 Billion EUR Lighter Balance Sheet

If we take a look at the balance sheet on Nokia's Q2 earnings release, there is a reduction of assets of about 4 billion EUR between Q2 2011 and 2012. About 1.4 billion EUR of this comes from impairment of Goodwill & amortization of intangible assets. This is also explained in a discussion on the operating results in the Q2 2012 interim report.

"During the second quarter 2012, based on a combination of factors, including the decline in our market capitalization, credit rating downgrades as well as our operating results, we concluded that there were sufficient indicators to require Nokia Group to perform an interim goodwill impairment analysis as of June 30, 2012. "

This explains the 1.4 billion reduction in goodwill and intangible assets. But what else did to reach this 4 billion EUR figure? 

"In the second quarter 2012, Nokia recognized EUR 800 million in valuation allowances related to its Finnish deferred tax assets in accordance with accounting standards "

Deferred tax assets is when a loss making company expects to make profits in the future, and sets aside a portion of their losses as tax credits to take advantage of, when they return to profitability. But this is allowed, in Finnish and International accounting laws, only if there is sufficient indication of the company returning to profitability. Deferred tax assets sits on the balance sheet as a current asset, and this accounts for another 800 million of the total 4 billion reduction in assets. 

The rest of the 4 billion is made of lower accounts receivable (amounts due to the company), and prepaid expenses. 

Now, I may be reading a bit too much into this, but cleaning up the balance sheet of intangibles, and deferred tax assets may be to make it more palatable to a buyer. Even though Nokia is currently valued low (it's currently valued lower than what Motorola was picked up for), most buyers would not be convinced by intangibles & goodwill on the balance sheet. Goodwill comes up when a company acquires another company, and pays more than the net asset valuation of the acquired company. The excess amount paid is not treated as a loss, but projected as an asset, which is the intangible valuation of expected synergies from the acquisition. Goodwill appears on the Nokia balance sheet because of the past acquisitions of Navteq, and others. 

Analysis of Nokia 4Q 2011 results

Results Summary
21% Year on year decline in revenue, 155% decline in earnings per share (IFRS), and 8% decline in mobile device volumes. Things certainly dont look too good for Nokia, especially considering these are Q4 results (the Christmas quarter). As the interim report states...

"On a year-on-year basis, the decline in our total Devices & Services volumes in the fourth quarter 2011 was driven by significantly lower Smart Devices volumes. Mobile Phones volumes were approximately flat year-on-year. "



Specifically, "Devices & Services" business saw a 29% decline in net sales, 11% decline in operating margins. The decrease in margins are quite likely due to the shift to Windows Phones OS, which increases the BOM if each phone (licensing royalties to Microsoft). At least I see no other explanation, as gross margin is very simply revenue - cost of goods sold.

Revenue & Net Profit Trend
I tracked Nokia’s revenues & profits over the last 3 years, and the chart below shows the trend from 2009 to 2011.

Nokia 2009 to 2011

The two peaks in the blue revenue line shows the seasonal phenomenon in the electronics/computer industry where Q4 sales are always much higher than previous quarters. It is interesting to see that there was a good peak in Q4 2010, but it was followed by a quick decline in Q1 2011 onwards. This is most likely due to the 11-Feb-2011 announcement of moving away from Symbian, which reduced the demand for Symbian smartphones overnight. As Nokia says...
"Following the announcement of our strategic partnership with Microsoft in February 2011, our strategy included the expectation to sell approximately 150 million more Symbian devices in the years to come. However, changing market conditions are putting increased pressure on Symbian. In certain markets, there has been an acceleration of the anticipated trend towards lower-priced smartphones with specifications that are different from Symbians traditional strengths, which has contributed to a faster decline of our Symbian volumes than we anticipated."
While the revenue is increasing sequentially (i.e. increasing from Q3 2011 to Q4 2011) it falls short of what Nokia was selling in 2010, and even in 2009. This is probably quite serious for the company... it’s performing worse than it was 2 years back.