Nokia 2014 Annual Report Download - page 10

08 NOKIA IN 2014
Letter from the President and CEO
The year 2014 was a
remarkable turning point
for Nokia—käännekohta,
as the Finns would say, in
thefullest sense of the term.
We moved from a position of weakness to
oneof strength; from losses to prots; from
cash burn to cash generation; from rapidly
narrowing options to a world where our future
is bright and our challenge is not the lack of
exciting opportunities, but rather choosing
from among them.
In the rst half of 2014, completing the sale
of substantially all of our Devices & Services
business to Microsoft was the primary focus,
and this was done in April. In an ideal world,
the Devices & Services business would have
had a dierent fate, but we lost ground to
other players who disrupted the sector. Given
this, we chose to sell the Devices & Services
business to Microsoft, a transaction that
made particular sense in light of our earlier
acquisition of Siemens’ share of what was
then Nokia Siemens Networks.
These two transactions were central to
the creation of the strong Nokia of today,
a company with three powerful businesses,
each a leader in their respective segments.
Nokia Networks holds leading positions in
most segments where it competes, including
4G; HERE is by far the strongest player in
mapping services for the automotive industry;
and Nokia Technologies continues to build
and license one of the strongest and broadest
patent portfolios in our industries.
Our full-year nancial results are a testament
to the potential of the new Nokia. For 2014,
our diluted EPS grew sixfold versus 2013 to
0.30 euro cents; net sales of EUR 12.7 billion
were roughly at and our net cash position
of EUR 5.0 billion remained very healthy
despite returning some EUR 1.8 billion to
shareholders. Momentum gathered in the
second half of the year in particular, with all
three businesses returning to growth.
Protability was strong at Nokia Networks
despite the heavy R&D investments necessary
to build a product and services portfolio that
now may very well be the most competitive in
the history of the company. The power of that
portfolio is reected in the deals we won in
2014 with customers such as Bharti Airtel,
China Mobile, T-Mobile and Vodafone. Our
relentless focus on eciency delivered
hundreds of millions of euros in savings, some
of which we reinvested in future-oriented
innovation as we move to capture
opportunities in LTE, our unique small cells
oering and the transition to virtualization
and the Telco Cloud.
€0.30
Diluted EPS for Continuing operations in 2014
€1.8bn
Returned to shareholders in 2014
€5bn
Net cash at December 31, 2014