Nokia 2015 Annual Report Download - page 14

12 NOKIA IN 2015
Letter from the
President and CEO
In 2015, we celebrated our
150th anniversary. In a sector
full of start-ups and companies
that come and go every
year, that is a remarkable
achievement. And, despite our
age, we are certainly showing
no signs of slowing down.
Our acquisition of Alcatel Lucent is an
industry-changing event and opens exciting
new opportunities for us and our customers.
The transaction makes nancial and strategic
sense on every level. It also does something
more: it enables us to pursue our vision
toexpand the human possibilities of the
connected world. In this rapidly approaching
world, where everyone and everything will be
connected, we are positioned both to do well
and do good.
The new Nokia comprises ve business
groups: Mobile Networks, Fixed Networks, IP/
Optical Networks, Applications & Analytics and
Nokia Technologies. These groups start from
a position of strength, including many number
one positions in our key market segments.
Further, these groups together give us
thebroad scope necessary to provide our
customers with smarter, more ecient and
more agile networks.
The acquisition of Alcatel Lucent, culminating
in our rst day of combined operations as
thenew Nokia on January 14, 2016, also
givesus a stronger position in many regions.
In North America we became the market
leader; in China we are the largest vendor
headquartered outside the country; in
Europe, Latin America and Middle East and
Africa we have roughly doubled our size.
Another critical development in 2015 was
thesale of HERE―our digital mapping and
location services business―to a German
automotive industry consortium in December.
HERE is a well-established business that
webelieve will go on to be very successful.
Our cash-generating strength and
commitment to creating shareholder value
was reected in our EUR 7 billion capital
structure optimization program, announced
inOctober, comprising EUR 4 billion in
shareholder distributions and EUR 3 billion
inde-leveraging.
These developments have had a
transformational eect on our company, yet
Iam particularly proud of the focus that our
employees demonstrated in 2015. Despite
asoft start to the year, and dicult market
conditions, our two continuing businesses
―Nokia Networks and Nokia Technologies―
again demonstrated leadership in their
respective elds with solid nancial and
operational performances.
Business performance
In 2015, prot before tax from Continuing
operations increased more than 50% to
EUR1.5 billion versus 2014 on EUR 12.5 billion
in net sales, which were 6% above the
year-ago period.
Prot before tax from Continuing
operations in2015
€1.5bn
Capital structure optimization program
€7bn
Planned shareholder distributions
€4bn