Nokia is aiming for growth in mobile phones of more than 25% by the second half of the year, with a programme of launches throughout the first half of 2002 that will see the company overhaul its entire product line.
The company said it increased market share in cellular handsets in its fourth quarter 2001 and sales for the handsets division were slightly up on the same quarter the year before to €6.7bn.
Jorma Ollila, Nokia's chairman and CEO, said: "We increased our full-year market share in mobile phones for the fourth consecutive year, reaching approximately 37% — almost double the level of 19% in 1997."
Margins in the Nokia business increased 6% over Q42000. Overall, Nokia reported sales of €8.8bn, down 5% on 2000. For the full year, the company reported sales of €31.2bn up by 3% on 2000 but pretax profits were down 41% to €3.5bn.
Motorola, in its Q4 results, said sales for its personal communications segment fell 14% to $3.0bn but orders fell 23% to $2.2bn. Motorola president Ed Breen said it was the second profitable quarter for the segment and estimated the company's market share at 17% in Q4.
Nokia said preliminary market research showed approximately 380 million mobile phones were sold globally in 2001.
Although Ollila says he does not expect a turnaround in the US economy until the last quarter of next year, he says he expected growth of 15% in mobiles business handled the company this year overall, accelerating from 6 to 10% in Q1 to 25 to 30% in the last two quarters of the year.
"Nokia is in a super position. We will demonstrate a complete product transition," he said.
"In the first half of this year we will launch well over 20 new products. It is almost one per week. I'm not talking about cosmetic changes: these are new products."
Ollila highlighted phones with FM radio receivers and MP3 audio players as well as the 7650, a phone with a built-in digital camera.
"This is the product transition we are talking about: new ways of communicating enabled by GPRS and wideband-CDMA networks. We expect to get a smooth, evolutionary migration to integrated communications services."
Ollila said he expected investment in wideband-CDMA in Europe and Edge in the US such that the company would see revenues from 3G handsets in the second half of the year.
"There is a lot of pent-up demand, a lot of people looking for replacement phones. And there will be a pick-up in demand for new phones. Even without a dramatic turnaround, the fundamentals are there for healthy growth to resume," he added.
The amount of Nokia's business in Europe fell below 50% for the first time, with Asia-Pacific, including China, accounting for 26% and the Americas 25%.
He said mobile phone sales into China would grow in line with worldwide sales but that infrastructure would lag.
"There is no drama there. Investment levels have been very strong. The flags raised there have been overdone," said Ollila.
He said the company has a presence in Japan in the infrastructure market through a deal with Vodafone subsidiary J-Phone. But the company would not enter the market for handset until networks based on the 3G Partnership Programme standards have been adopted.
