“We believe we have increased the competitiveness of our Smart Devices, and as a result Lumia is clearly making progress. We’re pleased that today Lumia is even out shipping the iPhone in countries like Argentina, India, Poland, Ukraine and of course in our home country of Finland,” Elop added.
In Q1, financial income and expenses net was negative EUR 106 million, the higher expense on a sequential basis was primarily due to the absence of income received to one of our investments, which benefited last quarter results.
Nokia CEO said the company received a claim from Indian tax authorities relating to withholding tax amounting to EUR 225 million plus applicable interest.
“We have reiterated our position that our operations are incompliance with local loss, as well as the bilaterally negotiated tax treaty between the Governments of India and Finland, and that we will defend ourselves vigorously against the claim,” Elop added.
According to a Reuters report, a big fall in sales of Nokia’s basic phones overshadowed a stronger performance from its Lumia smartphones in the first quarter of 2013.
Nokia, which has fallen behind Samsung and Apple in the smartphone race, said it sold 5.6 million units of Lumia handsets in the first quarter, up from 4.4 million in the previous quarter and in line with expectations. But overall net sales fell 20 percent to 5.9 billion euros from a year earlier, while phone volumes tumbled 30 percent on the previous quarter.