Nokia posts surprise second-quarter profit rise ahead of CEO change

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finnish telecom network equipment maker Nokia reported an unexpected rise in its first-quarter underlying profit on Friday, amid the COVID-19 pandemic as its new chief executive Pekka Lundmark takes over on Saturday.

Lagging behind its rivals China’s Huawei and Sweden’s Ericsson in 5G network sales, Nokia said its April-June underlying earnings rose to 0.06 euros per share from a profit of 0.05 euros a year ago, beating the 0.03 euros consensus in a Refinitiv poll.

Nokia, which had warned of a weak second quarter due to the virus, upgraded its forecast for 2020 underlying earnings per share to between 0.2 and 0.3 euros from 0.18 to 0.28 euros earlier.

(Reporting by Anne Kauranen and Supantha Mukherjee; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)