The Do-It-Yourself Elop Analysis

Ok. If you don't want any of my analysis or commentary or rants. Just the facts. Then Elop can be evaluated as Nokia CEO, for Nokia Corporate total results during his tenure. Or, because Nokia just now sold its total handset unit to Microsoft, it can be useful to see what results did Elop achieve at that handset unit (this includes both smartphones and featurephones). And lastly, since Elop did make a major change to Nokia's largest and most profitable division, the smartphone unit, it is a detail worth considering. No more analysis, just the facts...

NOKIA CORPORATION UNDER ELOP

First 6 months - Corporate quarterly revenues up 26% from 10.0B Euro to 12.6B Euro
Next 2.5 years - Corporate quarterly revenues down 55% from 12.6B Euro to 5.6B Euro

First 6 months - Corporate quarterly profit up 200% from 295M Euro to 884M Euro
Next 2.5 years - Corporate quarterly profit of 884M Euro turned into loss of -115M Euro

During first 6 months - Standard & Poor's rating for Nokia A, Moody's rating A2, Fitch's rating A 
On last day of office - Standard & Poor's rating for Nokia junk, Moody's rating junk, Fitch's rating junk

On day before Elop announced as new CEO - Nokia share price $9.70
On day before Elop released his Burning Platforms memo - Nokia share price $11.28 (up 16%)
On day before Nokia announces Elop to step down as CEO - Nokia share price $3.90 (down 65%)


NOKIA HANDSET UNIT PERFORMANCE UNDER ELOP

First 6 months - Handset quarterly revenues up 25% from 6.8B Euro to 8.5B Euro
Next 2.5 years - Handset quarterly revenues down 69% from 8.5B Euro to 2.6B Euro

First 6 months - Total handsets profit first 6 months 1.8B Euro 
Next 2.5 years - Total handsets loss next 2.5 years 361M Euro

First 6 months - North America quarterly handset volume flat from 2.6M units to 2.6M units
Next 2.5 years - North America quarterly handset volume down 80% from 2.6M units to 0.5M units

First 6 months - China quarterly handset volume up 13% from 19.3M units to 21.9M units
Next 2.5 years - China quarterly handset volume down 81% from 21.9M units to 4.1M units

Nokia handset market share when Elop started - 33%
Nokia handset market share when Elop departed - 14%

Nokia ranking handsets when Elop started - 1st
Nokia ranking handsets when Elop departed - 2nd

Gap to leader when Elop started - Nokia 50% bigger than number 2 (Samsung)
Gap to leader when Elop departed - Samsung 30% bigger than Nokia

This handset unit has now been sold (plus patents and mapping licences) for 5.3B Euro to Microsoft


NOKIA SMARTPHONE DIVISION PERFORMANCE UNDER ELOP

First 6 months - Smartphone quarterly revenues up 29% from 3.4B Euro to 4.4B Euro
Next 2.5 years - Smartphone quarterly revenues down 73% from 4.4B Euro to 1.2B Euro

First 6 months - Smartphone quarterly profit up 94% from 283M Euro to 548M Euro
Next 2.5 years - Smartphone quarterly profit of 548M Euro turned into loss of -168M Euro

First 6 months - Smartphone quarterly volume up 18% from 24.0M units to 28.3M units
Next 2.5 years - Smartphone quarterly volume down 74% from 28.3M units to 7.4M units

Nokia smartphone market share when Elop started - 35%
Nokia smartphone market share when Elop departed - 3%

Nokia ranking smartphones when Elop started - 1st
Nokia ranking smartphones when Elop departed - 9th

Gap to leader when Elop started - twice as big as number 2 (RIM) or number 3 (Apple)
Gap to leader when Elop departed - Samsung smartphones is 12x bigger than Nokia smartphones


Worst CEO ever? You make the call. Was Nokia smartphone unit truly in catastrophic trouble before the Burning Platforms memo? You make the call. Did the Elop Effect turn strong growth into collapse? You make the call.

Comments

[Esau]

Finnish Prime Minister and Bill Gates met many times years ago:

http://www.digitoday.fi/bisnes/2007/12/20/vanhanen-ja-gates-tapaavat-jalleen/200732462/66

[Esau]

Don't forget that it was Nokia who founded Symbian and took Ericsson and Motorola with it. That made Windows CE obsolete that time (forever).

[Povit]

What Elop did with Nokia is swindling, scheme and fraud. This must be brought into the court. Swindling is seen in every of his deeds.
So Nokia can be saved from Microsofts claws.

[volt]

"Was Nokia smartphone unit truly in catastrophic trouble before the Burning Platforms memo? "

No.

- They increased sales from 80M to 111M from 2009 to 2010 (Gartner). Even when Android were exploding, Symbian increased more than IOS.

- They had acknowledged that they had problems with their OS being perceived as dated and made significant changes to their Symbian innovation attempts with Symbian^3.

- They had created a working platform that were to have a symbiotic relationship with Symbian and eventually replace it. Maemo/The N900 had received very positive reviews even in the US and had a very enthusiastic community.

- Their purposed replacement OS and their existing milk cow OS had created a symbiotic layer in Qt that would allow development for both platforms and minimize the downsides of migration.

- They had what has been considered one of the world best R&D organizations.

- They had a period where their phones were considered bricks compared to i.e. HTC and the new slim trend. But with the N9 they ended that period and again their hardware design was considered desirable.

Apart from that, they still had considerable challenges and problems, but what is catastrophic is shooting your milk cow at the start of the year and having no replacement before the end of the year. Even knowing that your milk cow is old, you have to plan to get as much milk from it as you can until your replacement is ready. Elop must just be dumb. I can't understand it any other way.

[volt]

Oh, and they had the largest SmartPhone Eco System. Isn't that what all this was about in the first place?

[Saswat]

They will unfortunately get away with this.Tomi can keep on screeming.And we readers can keep on wondering.But unfortunately they will get away with this.

[Mihai]

Incidentally, if you like a good chuckle, check this parody out - The Microsoft-Nokia brouhaha reenacted as a Nigerian email scam: mikepohjola.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/dear-mr-nokia/

[J.O. Aho]

Reposted s short strip at google+ which felt really on the spot what happen to Nokia.

https://plus.google.com/117514772924198898473/posts/KMCSp4UY3Fn

[So Vatar]

@ Mihaj & Aho:
Brilliant, thanks for the laugh.
And here is the usual parody set in a bunker in Berlin anno 1945:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l9SmT9fZNQ

[Bruno]

David Jeske, symbian was smartphone, but most of the people didn't know how to use it. it was too complicated for most of them. that changed too late (S^3, anna, belle), but look at nokia N8. that phone had all features like today's samsung flagship S4. just disregard evolution in technology (processors, screen...) and you have phone with the same features like S4, but 4 years old. i woudn't call that a dumbphone.

[The Recusant]

Wow, David Jeske handily wins the most ignorant iFanboi troll contest, congrats! If that's what you think of Symbian, then iOS qualifies as moronphoneOS, because Symbian until now has more smartphone qualities than that overhyped iFruitcake.

[The Recusant]

w David Jeske handily wins the ignorant troll award. He/it should be banned for polluting this site w/ gross stupidity. CrApple's iPhone is the certifiable dumbphone from a technical, engineering & usage standpoint, most especially the first few versions. It's no more than an under-spec'ed glorified app launcher unstead of a proper smartphone OS. Symbian was built from the ground-up as a *Real-Time Operating System* (RTOS) for mobile devices, it has real multi-tasking that even the latest iCrapOS can't do until now, Symbian has the most feature-loaded built-in unlike iOS that rely on outside apps for even basic functions, much more efficient in CPU & power udage since it's not a mere cutdown desktop OS shoehorned into a mobile device, etc. 

In short, Jezke is the typical target market for crapple devices, tech-ignorant iSheep bleating the same talking points from the equally ignorant mainstream media acting essentially as the extension of the crapple PR department.

[PJ]

I stil think Tomi focuses too much on Elop and ignores the role of the Nokia board.

[ypi]

I'd really like to know if there is any kind of legal action or investigation happening. It seems obvious even for us, consumers. What's happening??

[RottenApple]

@ypi:

What's happening? Nothing, of course. No legal action. Conspiracy theories are insufficient for any courts to take action, no matter, how 'obvious' things are.

It all can be explained by other things like bad management so what are they supposed to do? Or can you produce any documents showing foul play?

The most important thing here is that Nokia has made some bad decisions long before Elop took over which directly or indirectly caused the whole mess. This alone is sufficient grounds for all people involved to claim they had no other choice or Nokia would have been bankrupt long ago.

True or not, if someone cries 'foul', they'll just say 'prove it', which, of course, won't - and can't happen.

My personal position is that Nokia, prior to 2011 had some severe egomanical attitude problems, which first led them to ignore the market development, sticking to a hopelessly outdated platform and the same problems led to a fatal decision, thinking that their brand name is more important than the product, which perfectly explains why they could even think about transitioning to a comatose new OS and believing it could be a success. And once the problems became clear it was too late, they had a contract they couldn't get out of and were stuck on the sinking ship.

No deliberate foul play involved and it'd perfectly explain what happened. So how would you take legal action if they can just stick to that version?

[Maybe]

@RottenApple

All true, but there might be a single piece of evidence that could be found: the number of N9 phones sold. It was constantly witheld. Many thought because it would disprove the theory that WP was the only choice. If that could be subpoenaed it might or might not have shown bad faith in the behaviour of Elop, and at least a breach of fiduciary trust.

Not that I believe it

[RottenApple]

@Maybe:

And what would that show? Nothing at all. The number is worthless because they can easily claim that MeeGo was not viable for whatever reason.

To be honest, yes, it looked great on the surface but nobody has a clue what quality the software actually is. Even a well selling product can be a problem due to various economical reasons.

About legal action, forget it! It will never happen because there will never be any conclusive proof. Nokia made an error in judgment and that's not a criminal offense, no matter how misguided the reasons for that judgment were.

The moment they decided not to do Android, they were doomed. Everything else doesn't really matter.

[Mickey]

This case is creates a lot of conspiracy theories.

E.g. Siilasmaa leading the Nokia board. He has F-Secure company, so what he might plan? How much Nokia-Microsoft deal will open doors to F-Secure? Maybe:
- Microsoft will now buy F-Secure technology to Windows products?
- Microsoft will buy F-Secure to mobile phones? Jack pot!

A lot of greedy conspiracy theories.

[The Recusant]

Some weasels already made big money on the M$-Nokia deal:

***
A flurry of bullish bets on Nokia just before markets closed on Friday are in line to pay off handsomely as a result of Microsoft's move to buy the Finnish company's handset business, and has once again raised questions about suspicious timing of such trades.

Microsoft Corp said Monday that it would buy Nokia's handset business for $7.2 billion in a bid to win market share in the mobile business. The announcement sparked a massive rally in Nokia's U.S.-listed shares, which were up 30 percent on the day.

But on Friday buying in call options, often used to express optimism about a stock in the near future, was far heavier than normal, prompting options strategists to note that an investor or investors benefited heavily from their timing.

"On the surface it seems like one of those where someone probably knew something," said Ryan Detrick, chief technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati. "Regardless, there's a very significant winner in a couple of hours of market time there."

***

Sauce: http://news.yahoo.com/timing-bullish-nokia-options-trades-raises-questions-191558354--sector.html

[The Recusant]

Another weasel story: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/unusual-action-nokia-deal-162549423.html

***
Nokia attracted unusually bullish option activity before this morning's $7.2 billion deal with Microsoft, raising questions about whether someone knew about the news ahead of time.

optionMONSTER's Heat Seeker tracking system detected heavy buying of September and October calls at the 3.50, 4, and other strike prices. These contracts locked in the purchase price for the stock no matter how far it might rise, so they have profited handsomely with NOK up about 30 percent to $5.05 today.

Speculation in options is common, just as in the stock market, but it is highly unusual to see such heavy activity going into a three-day holiday weekend in the summer. Moreover, the only concrete catalyst for Nokia last week appeared to be a "sell" rating by Deutsche Bank issued on Aug. 27, accompanied by cautious comments. The only real issue that could have been somewhat constructive was speculation that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop might be a candidate for to succeed Steve Ballmer in the top spot at Microsoft.