Nokia music features sales 10 million, 40 million expected

Nokia Corp., which increasingly is adding music features to handsets, said Monday it sold 10 million mobile phones with music players in 2004 and expects sales to exceed 40 million this year.

The announcement came as the world's largest mobile phone maker launched the Nokia 3250, its latest cell phone with an integrated digital music player and a twist feature that transforms a traditional phone keypad into dedicated music keys, the AP reports.

The handset, with a memory of 1 gigabyte, can store up to 750 songs and plays some 10 hours of music, Nokia said. It also features a 2-megapixel digital camera with a 4-X zoom, a radio and recording features. The 3250 is expected to retail for some Ђ350 (US$420).

Earlier this month, Nokia said it will delay by several months the launch of its top-range N-91 model that can store up to 4 gigabytes of music.

The N-91, dubbed the "mobile jukebox" by the company, was originally planned to be available in November for the Christmas market, but Nokia said will postpone shipping until the first quarter of 2006.

Based in Espoo, outside the Finnish capital, Nokia has sales in 130 countries. Last year, it sold 207 million mobile devices.