The Hindu Business Line : Nokia upbeat on mobile telephony

THE Vice-President - Customer and Market Operations (South-East Asian Pacific region), Nokia Corporation, Mr Mauro Montanaro, is quite upbeat about the future prospects for mobile telephony. "We seem to underestimate the market every year. Last year, we estimated a 10 per cent growth, but ended up selling 100 million pieces of camera phones (globally) in 2005. We are expecting to account for 74 per cent of the total cellular phone volumes by 2009," he said.

Nokia accounts for 55 per cent of the converged devices market share (source: Conalys 2005). However, the company's share in the global market hovers around 20 per cent and in the European 3G devices market, at 35 per cent. It has accounted a sales volume of 50 million 3G devices in 2005.

Since the roll out of its first camera phone in 2002, the company has recorded a phenomenal growth in this segment. "In 2005, we shipped close to 40 million phones with integrated music player. Considering the proliferation for music-driven devices, we expect to ship close to 80 million pieces with music players and 150 million devices with FM radio this year. We are also planning to introduce visual radio facility in select countries, for music has become the home for integrated activities."

Reverting to yet another development, he said Nokia was all set to launch with Yahoo a facility to make e-mail easy for consumers.

On India, he said, "The prospects are very bright. We foresee growth in the entry-level segment and this has, in a way, driven our investments in India operations significantly." Without divulging the investment details, he said the company was investing heavily not just on the Chennai plant but in management resources as well. "We need to gear up our marketing team, strengthen our network to penetrate into deeper pockets," he added.