Nokia grabs bigger slice of market

Nokia is gobbling up market share on mobile handsets fuelled by sales in emerging markets.

Last week, the Finnish mobile phone maker beat sales expectations on its mobile handset business when it announced its earnings for the second quarter of 2008. Nokia sold 122 million mobile phones during the quarter, beating the average analyst forecast of about 120 million phones for the quarter.

As a result, the company increased market share once again grabbing about 40 per cent of the market, up about two percentage points from its second quarter 2007 market share of about 38 per cent. This means roughly one in four handsets sold throughout the world in the second quarter were Nokia handsets.

And Nokia expects to grow handset sales through the rest of this year predicting about a 10 per cent increase in handset volume. This is up from earlier forecasts of between six per cent and seven per cent unit growth.

Nokia's increase in mobile handset sales is likely to come at the expense of some of its competitors, namely Sony Ericsson and Motorola. Sony Ericsson shocked the market in June when it warned that its profits would be down due to slower demand in Europe. Meanwhile, Motorola, which is in the process of spinning off its handset division, is still struggling to get back on track.

For Nokia, the key to success appears to be its ability to address developing markets. Countries such as Brazil, China, India and Russia continue to grow, even as sales soften in regions such as Western Europe. Asia-Pacific, which includes India, and Latin America saw the biggest growth during the quarter. Nokia shipped 36.4 million handsets to Asia-Pacific for an increase of 42.2 per cent compared to the same period a year ago. Sales to Latin America were up 39.1 per cent.

China, another key market for Nokia, was still up about 11 per cent with 17.6 million handsets sold during the quarter but growth slipped slightly. Meanwhile, Nokia saw sales in Europe remain unchanged from last year's second quarter at 27.1 million. And US sales were up about 9.8 per cent.

Even though Nokia is increasing the volume of phones sold, it's still seeing a decline in the average price of the phones it sells. During the quarter, the average price of a Nokia phone was about €74 euros, down from about €79 during the first quarter.

Nokia plans to announce new, more expensive, smart phones later this year that should help boost the average price of its phones. For example, the new N96, a compact follow-on to the successful N95, is expected some time in the third quarter. Nokia also plans to introduce a range of touchscreen phones that is likely to compete head-to-head with Apple's iPhone. Apple and AT&T stores across the country have sold out of the new iPhone 3G, as sales of the new iPhone appear to be living up to the hype.

Original article: Nokia racks up more handset sales from CNET News.com