Nokia posts €747m profit as firm moves on after Microsoft mobile sale

Company looks ahead after traumatic sale of mobile unit

Nokia has posted a profit of €747m for its third financial quarter of 2014, as the firm shows signs of recovery in its new era after the sale of its mobile unit to Microsoft in April.

The company saw improved growth in key business units, most notably its network division where sales in Q3 rose to €2.9bn, up from €2.6bn in the same period last year.

The Here maps division also performed well, seeing 12 percent growth in year-on-year sales to €236m. This was helped by sales of Here map data licences to 3.2 million vehicles, up from 2.6 million in Q3 2013.

Finally, the Nokia Technologies division achieved a nine percent year-on-year growth in net sales, from €140m in Q3 2013 to €152m in Q3 2014, which the company said was due to Microsoft becoming a "more significant intellectual property licensee".

Overall this helped the company to post net sales of €3.3bn for the quarter, up from €2.9bn in the same period last year. This led to profits of €747m, a significant improvement on the loss of €91m posted in Q3 2013.

The shedding of the phone unit, which had been hemorrhaging money for some time, no doubt helped the company swing back to a profit. The CEO of the new streamlined Nokia, Rajeev Suri, said he was pleased with the results.

"Nokia's third-quarter results demonstrate our strong position in a world where technology is undergoing significant change," he said. "Performance at Nokia Networks was particularly satisfying, with growth and improved profitability."

The results come in the same week that Microsoft is planning to ditch the Nokia brand from its mobile devices and instead focus on Lumia.

This should end confusion over the use of the Nokia brand in two different businesses.