The world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has reported 66% slide in its quarterly profits due to the economic downturn resulting in lesser demand for handsets. This news has sent the company stock plummeting on all major stock exchanges falling 8.8 % to 10.12 €.

Nokia profits for the April to June quarter have been only 380 million € as compared to 1.1 billion € for the same quarter a year ago. Nokia’s top rival phone maker Sony Ericsson has also reported similar results for the same period and believe that thing won’t change for the remaining year. The company has reported losses of 213 million € for the same period and it’s marginally less then the previous quarter when it had a 293 million € loss. To help survive this difficult time the company has introduced cost reduction measures including plans for a layoff of 4000 employees.

Both Sony Ericsson and Nokia have not been able to penetrate the multimedia and internet segment of the market. They face a lot of competition from competitors like Apple, HTC and BlackBerry. Even the two companies have tried by introducing low cost phones in the segment but still have failed to increase there market share.