Nokia is forecasting that the overall, worldwide mobile device market for the full year 2005 will reach approximately 780 million units, compared with a previous estimate of 760 million units, and up from an estimated 643 million units in 2004. Industry volumes in the fourth quarter 2005 are expected to reflect the usual holiday seasonality and grow compared with the third quarter 2005. The company is predicting that its mobile device volume growth will exceed overall market growth in the fourth quarter, with Nokia’s market share expected to increase both year on year and sequentially.
Nokia attributes the industry volume growth to an expanding mobile subscriber base in developing markets. In more developed markets, replacement and upgrade sales continue to be driven by the availability of new features, services and cameras.
In mobile infrastructure, Nokia now expects the overall market in 2005 to show slight to moderate growth compared with 2004 in EUR terms. Operators in developing countries are at various stages of acceleration in their capacity upgrades to meet rising subscriber growth, while in advanced markets, there is ongoing targeted investment in capacity and network optimization. Nokia expects its own networks sales to be down year on year when compared to the exceptionally strong sales generated by operator year-end spending in the fourth quarter of 2004, but also due to the fact that a significant amount of operators’ current investment is taking place in markets were Networks has not historically had a major presence, such as the Middle East and Africa.
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