Nokia, Cellphone Maker | featured news

Moody's ratings agency on Friday downgraded Nokia's debt grade to junk status, citing greater than anticipated pressure on the struggling cellphone maker's earnings after it announced plans for major cuts and global layoffs. It kept the outlook negative, meaning it could downgrade it again.

Nokia's outgoing Chairman Jorma Ollila promised a range of new products ahead of a meeting on Thursday with shareholders who are increasingly losing patience with the company's recovery efforts.

Wounded cellphone maker Nokia has turned on one of its former allies in the patent protection battlefield by filing lawsuits against rival smartphone maker HTC as it steps up its efforts to raise funds.

Soaring sales of smartphones lifted Samsung Electronics's profit to a record and apparently pushed the South Korean company past Nokia as the world's biggest cellphone seller—and perhaps past Apple as No. 1 in smartphones.

Standard & Poor's has cut its credit rating on Finnish cellphone maker Nokia to junk on expectations of lower sales, following a similar move by Fitch Ratings earlier this week.

The world's biggest cellphone maker has seen its share of the U.S. market slide to 7 percent from a peak of 35 percent, but it is now trying to turn around.