Nokia Beats Expectations on Higher Software Sales

Nokia Corp. on Thursday reported a better-than-expected second-quarter profit boosted by significantly higher software sales, which offset challenging market conditions.

The Finnish company, which is currently working on a €15.6 billion ($17.14 billion) acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, said net profit for the three months through June came in at €347 million, beating an analyst forecast of €209 million, according to a poll by SME Direkt, a financial data provider.

Nokia reported a net profit of €2.51 billion for the second quarter of 2014, buoyed by a €3.2 billion gain from the sale of its handset business to Microsoft in April 2014. Excluding the gain from the sale of its handset unit and losses from its discontinued operations, Nokia's net loss amounted to €28 million in the second quarter in 2014.

Quarterly revenue rose to €3.21 billion from €2.94 billion. Operating profit was €508 million in the quarter, up from €284 million last year.

Underlying operating profit margin at Nokia's networks unit amounted to 11.5% in the second quarter, compared with 11% in the year-earlier period and 3.2% in the first quarter this year.

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