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Nokia's infrastructure joint venture, Nokia Siemens, came down to earth with a bump after two days of big announcements - the purchase of most of Motorola Networks and the win of a $7bn LTE network and outsourcing deal with US-based LightSquared. The JV's revenue fell by 5% year-on-year to €3bn and the firm offered a weak outlook for the coming quarter. By contrast, Ericsson enjoyed a doubling in its Q2 profits.

NSN is the first major infrastructure vendor to go public on the problems they face in India, where major tenders are being delayed by the long running debate over whether Chinese suppliers should be allowed to bid. Of course this is most important for Huawei and ZTE - the former has already had a couple of major deals cancelled or put on hold, and operators are unwilling to make equipment decisions until they know whether the Chinese firms will be included. But everyone is affected by the delays and uncertainties. Nokia revealed during its earnings call that NSN would have recorded about $260m in additional revenue in the quarter had Indian security clearances been obtained.

That would have boosted revenue €3.04bn to €3.24bn, making Q2 results look rather more shiny. Results were also hit by components shortages and rising competition. The revenue figure was down 5% year-on-year (10% with constant currency rates), but were 12% up on Q110. Operating loss was €179m, better than last year's €188m or the €226m of the first quarter. Excluding one-time charges, operating profit was €51m, compared to just €2m a year earlier.

NSN depressed the markets by saying it would maintain the same market share, whereas previously it had pledged to grow more quickly than the overall sector following recent reorganizations, with a heavier focus on services. This business now accounts for 46% of sales, generating €1.4bn in the quarter. The firm expects its operating margin, after extraordinary items, to be between break-even and 2% for the year. For Q3, NSN predicts revenues of €2.7bn to €3.1bn.

Meanwhile, although Ericsson was subject to many of the same factors as NSN - component shortages, Indian uncertainty and price wars - it reported Q2 net profit of SKr1.9bn ($258m), double the year-ago figure of Skr831m. This was despite an 8% drop in revenues, dragged down by lower infrastructure sales. Sales in Global Services were flat due to decline in network roll-out although Professional Services increased by 5%. Total net sales were SKr48bn ($6.5bn), compared to SKr52.1bn a year earlier.

"Operators showed a continued good demand for mobile broadband driven by smartphone and laptop usage. Sales were however impacted by continued industry component shortages and supply chain bottlenecks. We estimate that this had a negative impact on our sales in the quarter by SKr3bn to SKr4bn," said CEO Hans Vestberg in a statement.

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