Euronews: Nokia Shrinks, Ericsson Grows

More second-quarter financials fun today, as Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK), Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC), Telenor Group (Nasdaq: TELN) and ADVA Optical Networking open up their books.

Nokia generated revenues of €9.28 billion (US$13.13 billion) in the second quarter of 2011, down 7.2 percent compared with a year ago. (See Nokia Reports Q2.)

Ericsson, the Swedish networking infrastructure giant, saw its second-quarter revenues grow 14 percent year-on-year to 54.8 billion Swedish kronor (US$8.55 billion), but its profits of SEK 3.2 billion ($499 million) -- which were hit by the cost of job cuts in Sweden, among other things -- disappointed investors. (See Ericsson's Growth Spurt Continues, Ericsson Reports Q2 , Ericsson's SPIT Vision and Ericsson Signals New M&A Era.)

Asian operations came to the rescue of Norway-based carrier Telenor in its second quarter, reports Reuters, with 21 percent organic revenue growth in the region helping to raise the overall figures clear of analysts' predictions.

Second-quarter revenues at ADVA, the German metro transport vendor, were up 13.4 percent year-on-year at €77.8 million ($110.3 million). ADVA cites network traffic growth driven by video applications and cloud computing services as one of the primary reasons for its continuing success. (See ADVA Reports Q2 and ADVA in for the Long Haul With 100G.)

Vodacom Pty. Ltd. , the South African mobile operator majority-owned by Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD), reported an 8.1 percent year-on-year rise in second-quarter revenues, with demand for mobile data proving to be the real growth engine.

Telia Norge, a subsidiary of Swedish carrier Telia Company , has sold its shares in U.K.-Norway subsea cable system North Sea Communications AS (NSC) to HitecVision for approximately SEK 170 million ($26.3 million). The system serves the North Sea's oil and gas industry. (See TeliaSonera Sells North Sea Cable.)

U.K. regulator Ofcom has a passion for pumping out surveys, and its latest has found that customer satisfaction levels in the mobile arena are higher than they are in landline-land. The best-performing landline provider in the survey was Sky , with a 66 percent satisfaction rate, while T-Mobile (UK) topped the mobile operators' chart, with 72 percent of users giving it the thumbs-up. In the broadband space, Orange UK outperformed the other big names, surprisingly leaving Virgin Media Inc. (Nasdaq: VMED) -- which has achieved plaudits for its downlink speeds -- languishing in the next-to-bottom spot. (See Ofcom Samples Satisfaction Levels.)

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading