Nokia To Expect Industry Shipments Growth

Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, expects industrywide mobile phone shipments to grow 10 percent to 15 percent in 2003 and each year after that, a company executive said on Wednesday.

"We will see next year, and the years after that, growth in the industry for the handset volumes between 10 and 15 percent," K.P. Wilska, president of Nokia Americas, said at a Banc of America Securities conference in San Francisco.

Nokia currently expects industrywide mobile phone shipments in 2002 to be about 400 million.

Wilska said the company believes a big driver of future growth in mobile phone sales will be the replacement market. Consumers who are currently replacing their phones have held their previous phones for an average of 2.5 years, he said.

Wilska said Nokia was targeting a 40 percent market share in mobile phones, compared with the 35.6 percent share it had at the end of the second quarter, according to research group Gartner Dataquest.

He said he expected average selling prices of the phones to be higher in the second half of 2002, with potential to expand depending on the demand for its products and new technology.

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