Nokia reported another quarterly loss on Thursday, although results were better than expected. Now the company hopes next month's launch of new Lumia smartphones could help the copmpany gain some market share.

Third-quarter net loss widened to 969 million euros ($1.27 billion) from 68 million euros a year earlier, Nokia said today in a statement.

Nokia's quarterly underlying loss before one-off items was 0.07 euros per share compared to a profit of 0.03 euros a year earlier. The company's net cash position fell to 3.6 billion euros ($4.7 billion) by the end of the quarter from 4.2 billion in June.

"As we expected, Q3 was a difficult quarter in our Devices & Services business; however, we are pleased that we shifted Nokia Group to operating profitability on a non-IFRS basis," said Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO.

The third-quarter results were helped by the company's telecoms equipment company, Nokia Siemens Networks which the company said had achieved record profits.

"Nokia Siemens Networks had a remarkable quarter in which we achieved record profitability on a non-IFRS basis and the Nokia Siemens Networks cash balance increased for the fourth quarter in a row," Elop added.

Nokia has fallen behind rivals in smartphones, and hopes that its partnership with Microsoft and the release of the new Lumia 820 and 920 phones next month would help the company compete with Samsung and Apple.

Elop said that Nokia's new Asha full touch smartphones received positive consumer response, which was translated into strong sales.

In Location & Commerce, Nokia made progress establishing its platform offering with customers like Amazon. "This is in line with our plan to expand our location offering to more customers," Elop added.