Mobile phone maker Nokia Corp yesterday said its first-quarter earnings rose 25 percent on demand for cheaper phones in emerging markets.
The results came in below analysts expectations, and Nokia’s share price fell more than 6 percent to 19.59 euros (US$31.20) in Helsinki.
Net profit was 1.2 billion euros in the first three months of the year, up from 980 million euros on the same period of last year.
Revenue increased 28 percent to 12.6 billion euros, from 9.8 billion euros a year earlier, with strong growth of handsets sales in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
The world’s biggest mobile phone maker said its market share had fallen slightly to 39 percent, from 40 percent in the previous quarter.
Nokia said it sold more than 115 million mobile devices in the three-month period — an increase of 27 percent from last year.
The Finnish company expects the mobile phone market worldwide to grow by some 10 percent this year from its estimate last year of 1.14 billion units, but added that the average selling price across the industry would continue to fall during the year.
Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said he was pleased with the quarterly result and gave an upbeat forecast for the rest of the year.
“The overall device market developed as expected, with the greatest demand in emerging markets where our position is very strong,” Kallasvuo said. “The competitiveness of our product portfolio is reflected in our market share and we target market share gains in the second quarter.”
But he said that Nokia would have “no major new products” in the second quarter.
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