HELSINKI, Oct 18: Nokia, until recently the world’s biggest mobile phone maker, posted a third quarter net loss of 969 million euros ($1.27 billion), compared with a loss of 68 million euros a year earlier.

However, shares in the embattled company rose by more than 9.0 per cent on the Helsinki bourse after sales came in higher than forecast, before falling back to a gain of 6.0 per cent a few hours later on a market up by 0.8 per cent. The group’s cash position was also slightly better than expected.

The Finnish company’s chief executive Stephen Elop described the third quarter as “difficult”, with sales down by 19 per cent to 7.2bn-euro.

The sales figure was however, better than the market had expected. Analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast average sales of 6.9 billion euros.—AFP