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Comment by chris_wot | Hacker News Reader

I didn't think Nokia existed as a seperate entity any more?

They only sold their mobile device segment. They still power a ton of the world's networking infrastructure, especially since they acquired Alcatel-Lucent a while back.

For unix nerds: yes, Nokia now owns Bell Labs.

Ouch.

Nokia has a market cap of $23B and did $14B in revenue over the last year.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=NOK+Key+Statistics

I plead ignorance!

To add insult to injury, they plan on returning to the phone business next year :)

Well that definitely makes me feel a little sheepish.

I think that is just a rumor, though you could believe it because it is officially denied.

Isn't that a pretty low market-cap for that kind of revenue figure (not even 2x)? Are expectations not very good for them?

1) Expectations are definitely not strong. 2) The common multiple is versus profit, not revenue. Their Price/Earnings is around 8. Not great, but much higher than Price/Sales.

Nokia exited the consumer market, so they fell off most people's radars. They've continued as a multinational network equipment company with over 100,000 employees, so they do still exist.

As far as I know, this is their first reentry into consumer products since getting out of the mobile phone business.

Microsoft only bought the Nokia phone manufacturing business and got a license to use the name for a period of time. The rest of the business still exists and seems to be doing well.

Considering that by doing well you also mean moving the majority of their R&D from Europe to Asia.

They just bought the French competiror Alcatel-Lucent which a large European staff.

Which will be phased out to Asia, eventually.

On a past life, I was one of those employees that had the "pleasure" to do competence transfer to my replacements in NSN India.

That sucks, sorry to hear that.

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