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| - Finnish telecoms equipment maker Nokia said Thursday healthy demand for 5G network equipment and better cost control helped shrink its net loss in the first quarter, but shaved its 2020 outlook due to the new coronavirus. The company posted a net loss of 117 million euros ($127 million) for the first three months of the year, compared to a loss of 446 million a year earlier. "Nokia's solid first quarter results showed broad year-on-year profitability improvements as our transformation and product cost reduction efforts started to take hold," chief executive Rajeev Suri said in the earnings report. The group's operating margin, calculated without the IFRS standard, rose to 2.4 percent, compared to -1.2 percent a year ago. For the rest of the year, Nokia said it anticipated an operating margin of nine percent, down from the 9.5 percent previously announced, within a spread of 1.5 points. It said it expected 2020 earnings to be in line with 2019, "with the exception of Q2, during which we expect to see the majority of the COVID-19 impact." It said sales dropped by 2.4 percent in the first quarter to 4.9 billion euros, because of supply problems linked to the virus. "In Q1, we saw a top line impact from COVID-19 issues of approximately 200 million euros, largely the result of supply issues associated with disruptions in China." It said that while it believed the telecoms industry was "relatively resilient to the effects of COVID-19 and has not been significantly affected by it until now, customer demand and/or Nokia's capacity to meet customer demand could be further impacted in the future." hdy/po/spm
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