Nokia turns to American standard

Mobile phone maker Nokia's latest effort to lift its sagging sales is a hand-held device called N-gage. The cellphone doubles as a video-game device. PHOTO: REUTERS

Nokia Oyj, the top cellphone maker, is expanding its range of handsets aimed at the North American market to gain on Motorola in the US and help grab 40 percent of the global market.

The Finnish company, which last week scaled back its first-quarter sales and profit forecasts, will unveil "several" phones based on the standard used in North America at the CTIA technology fair in New Orleans this week, spokesman Kari Tuutti said.

Nokia is turning to the US as competition heats up in Europe, where eight in 10 people own mobile phones. Nokia has about 10 percent of the market for code-division multiple access phones, while it controls almost half the market for phones using the global system for mobile communications, the dominant standard in Europe.

"CDMA is Nokia's only chance of keeping a decent market share in the US," said Jussi Uskola, an analyst at Nordea Securities, with an "buy" rating on the stock. "Nokia has lagged rivals in CDMA, so this is the right way to go."

Nokia generated about 16 percent of sales in the US last year, making it the company's biggest market. Motorola pulled even with Nokia in the US in the fourth quarter for the first time in three years. About half of Americans have cellular phones.

"CDMA is one of the areas where we aim to strengthen this year," Tuutti said. "We have increased our CDMA efforts in the past two years, which will help us lift our market share."

Phonemakers are counting on new models to persuade existing users to upgrade and to attract new customers in faster-growing areas such as India. Global handset sales fell for the first time in 2001 and rose 6 percent last year, according to researcher Gartner Inc.

Nokia's new models may include the fashion-category phone 6585, which has a color screen, a cheaper 2200 model and three mid-priced handsets, WR Hambrecht & Co analysts wrote in a client note, citing a release that appeared on Nokia's Web site briefly.

Nokia declined to give details of the handsets to be introduced.

Motorola in January unveiled eight new handsets with features such as color screens to catch up with Nokia. Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd, the world's No. 5, this month presented the first models designed and developed by the 17-month-old venture, including two CDMA phones aimed at the North American market.