Nokia Oyj, the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, raised its operating margin forecast, predicted market share gains in mobile devices next year and said average selling prices in the industry will fall.
The operating margin will be 16 percent to 17 percent in one to two years, Espoo, Finland-based Nokia said yesterday in a statement distributed by Hugin. The company in November last year forecast an operating margin of 15 percent over one to two years. Nokia predicted "some decline" in industry average selling prices.
Nokia chief executive officer Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo has boosted Nokia's profit and market share this year with products ranging from phones costing less than US$50 to models featuring satellite navigation, music and e-mail.
The company is bundling Internet services including music sales, maps and games under the Ovi brand to capture more revenue outside handset and network-equipment sales.
"The news was pretty much in line with expectations," said Greger Johansson, an analyst at Redeye AB, who recommends holding the stock. "There's some disappointment about that lack of real news. The stock has advanced extremely well and expectations have risen."
Nokia fell 1.21 euros, or 4.4 percent, to 26.37 euros at 10:44am in Helsinki trading.
Before yesterday, the stock had surged 78 percent this year, making it the third-best performer on the 50-member Dow Jones EURO STOXX 50 Index.
Nokia made the announcement in connection with a meeting with analysts, investors and journalists in Amsterdam yesterday.
The Espoo, Finland-based company also forecast the industry would grow about 10 percent next year from the 1.1 billion units that will be sold this year. Nokia said there would be an estimated 4 billion handset users by 2009, a year earlier than it had previously estimated.
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