Nokia World: Mobile market to grow 10 per cent

gallery

Worldwide mobile phone sales are set to grow by 10 per cent, according to Nokia's chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

Speaking at Nokia's Capital Markets Day in Amsterdam, Kallasvuo said that there would be four billion mobile phone users by 2009, a year ahead of previous industry estimates.

Average selling prices for mobile handsets is expected to fall, as manufacturers see more growth in emerging markets, where "value" phones are driving growth, and slower sales in the US and Europe. None the less, Kallasvuo said that Nokia is targeting operating margins of 16 to 17 per cent, against its previous target of 15 per cent.

Nokia expects sales of its high-end handsets, including the multi-media friendly N Series, to support its higher margins. Kallasvuo said that Nokia would ship more than 250 million camera phones and 180 million music phones in 2008. The company already claims more than half of the market for converged handsets, which the company refers to as multimedia computers.

Kallasvuo added that services - such as the Ovi multimedia platform - would account for a higher proportion of Nokia's business, driven by a wider range of multi-media ready handsets, but he gave no targets for services revenues. "There is a great opportunity to take mobile internet services to a wider audience. Ovi is a foundation, from which we plan to expand Nokia in new directions," he said. "Our goal is to have an installed base of 300m devices that are fully network enabled by 2010."

Nokia also announced that it had acquired Avvenue, a service that allows mobile users to access files on their PC when they are on the move. Nokia did not disclose terms of the deal to buy Avvenue, which is based in Palo Alto, California, and is privately held.

Email to a friend

Print this page