Nokia Q3 Market Share To Fall After Maintaining Prices, Product Delay

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Robert Andrews

mocoNews.net
Friday, September 5, 2008; 9:00 AM

Nokia ( NYSE: NOK) expects its share of the handset market to be lower in Q3 than Q2 - a change from its July 17 forecast, when it projected unchanged share. In a stock exchange note, the Finnish outfit blamed competition, its refusal to follow competitors by cutting prices and a roll-out delay for an unnamed mid-range product.

Still, Nokia expects anincreaseover the course of the full year, forecasting handset volume to be 10 percent up on last year's 1.14 billion. That's despite it saying the overall mobile device market this year will be hit by "weaker consumer confidence in multiple markets".

From the analysts' call (taking place right now): "It's too early to estimate with precision - but we expect them to be just slightly down. We haven't unduly sacrificed gross margins by playing this game of aggressive pricing.

Asked about multiple recent handset delays, including the one mentioned: "It's absolutely not anything systemic - they're not related issues."