Nokia raises forecast for total handset market

Nokia has raised its forecast of growth in the total mobile handset market by five percentage points. At the company’s annual general meeting on March 30, Jorma Ollila, chairman and chief executive of Nokia, said: "Due to strong subscriber growth, we have now updated our global mobile device market volume estimate for this year.

"Nokia estimates that in the year 2006, the mobile device market volume will increase globally 15% or more from our estimate of 795 million units in 2005. Previously, we estimated that the global mobile device market volume would grow 10% or more this year from last year's estimate."

He also repeated the company's earlier statements that Nokia expects approximately 80% of the next billion subscribers to come from the emerging markets, and that it expects the global mobile subscriber base to reach three billion during 2008.

In concluding, Ollila said: "I believe that Nokia is well placed for some new innovative leaps,” describing what we have seen so far as "the first era” of the mobile industry.