Nokia lowers 2002 forecasts for sales and handset shipments
Nokia has also lowered its estimates for the number of handsets that will be sold during 2002. "Mobile phone market volumes in the first quarter of 2002 were broadly in line with company expectations," said Jorma Ollila, Nokia s chairman and CEO. "However, Nokia now believes that general weakness in all key regions will affect mobile phone demand for the remainder of the year. We are therefore lowering our total market volume estimates for 2002 to a range of 400 to 420 million units."
Nokia had previously forecast 2002 sales of 420-440 million handsets. Gartner Dataquest estimates that 399.6 million phones were sold in 2001, although Nokia s estimate for last year is 380 million units.
Nokia, which supplied one out of every three phones sold worldwide last year, reported a net profit of 863 million euros ($768 million) compared with 975 million euros in the first quarter of 2001. Sales fell 12% to 7.01 billion euros from 8.01 billion euros in the year-ago period.
"Nokia is working actively for industry renewal with a continuous flow of new products supporting a range of technologies," said Ollila. "In the first half of this year alone, we plan to ship more models than in the whole of 2001, driving new mobile applications and services.
"This year will also mark the start of 3G, another key component of industry renewal, with the transition from 2G to 3G likely to span several years. We are preparing for the launch of our first 3G mobile device in the third quarter and are committed to having the very first Nokia-delivered 3G network in operation during September 2002."
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