The dividend this year included a special one time dividend +
the regular dividend, that it why it shows as a higher yield.
The regular dividend is E 0.16, or around $0.17. At
today's price the regular dividend yields around 3.45%
According to Yahoo Finance, Nokia has some $8B in cash (net of
Debt), that is a ton of cash. If that is accurate, it is
difficult to imagine that Nokia will eliminate the
dividend.
Ericson's problems are both unique and sector driven.
Unique because it is essentially a one trick pony, its
acquisition of Redback Networks has been widely seen as a failure.
However, the huge revenue declines in the wireless sector are
obviously affecting all. That said, Ericson is strong in
Europe, Middle East and to a lesser extent in the US. Europe
and Middle East have grinded to a halt. I believe that
Ericson generates the vast majority of its revenues from wireless,
so it is screwed.
Given the huge slow down in its main revenue generator, its
employee roster is too heavy, analysts think the restryucturing
plan will come up short unless they cut deeper. Forget where I read
it, but it plans to cut some R&D, depending on how it is done,
it could further hurt them. They have to cut middle
management, sales and only touch R&D where there are engineers
working on roducts that are at their end of life. And
certainly, people in the customer service has to be preserved, only
cut the non performers there.
Nokia is quite strong in the US, it is a player in China
(distant second behind Huawei), but it is not an insignificant
percentage, I think it is in the 20s., but don't hold me to it.
I do not believe Ericson has access to that market.
How bad is Nokia being hurt by the current environment? It
is tough to know, however, Nokia has made recent announcements of
wins in China, even if they are not kicking in yet, they should
over the next quarter or so.
Unfortunately, the degree of the slow down has caught everyone
by surprise. Analysts were clueless.
Nokia has had a string of decent news in the past several
months. One which has been voided momentarily is the extended
agreement with Samsung, that was substantial relative to the
Technology division overall yearly revenue. As noted, there
have been contract wins in SDN, and Wireless with both China
Telecom and China Mobile, as well as Switching and Routing.
All of which has consistently fallen on def ears. I can
understand, the wireless division is Nokia's larget revenue
producer, and it is slowing down big time.