German electronics giant Siemens expects its loss-making mobile phone handset activities to remain in the red in the first three months of this year, which is the second quarter of the company's business year, the chairman said Wednesday.

Siemens runs its business year from October to September and the mobile phone activities posted a loss of 143 million euros (188 million dollars) in the three months to October.

"We don't think that we'll post a positive result for the current quarter," chairman Klaus Kleinfeld told journalists in Munich late Tuesday in comments not released for publication until Wednesday.

Kleinfeld also hinted that no decision had yet been reached about the fate of the business.