Nokia net profit up quarter 1 2006

[ruby]

Nokia reported that its net profit in the first quarter rose 21 percent to $1.3 billion over the year-ago quarter—exceeding analysts’ expectations—on the strength of more than 75 million handsets shipped.

Nokia said that its global market share rose 3 percent over the year-ago quarter to 35 percent. Nokia and Motorola both gained significant market share in the first quarter to claim a total of 56 percent global market share, further squeezing the remaining market share open to other handset vendors.

Nokia’s together earned operating profits of $1.7 billion, up from $1.26 billion in the year-ago quarter, based on volume sales of handsets in developing markets as well as a broadened portfolio of camera phones and music phones. In contrast, Nokia’s network equipment division reflected a drop in earnings to $184 million from $272 million in the year-ago quarter, and its enterprise solutions division’s losses increased to $81 million from $11 million in the year-ago quarter.

Nokia’s greatest gains in mobile device shipments came in the closely watched North American market, where it trails Motorola; there the Finnish vendor shipped 8.4 million units, a massive 95-percent increase over the year-ago quarter’s shipments of 4.3 million units. Nokia also made solid gains in volume shipments of 50 percent or more in the rapidly growing markets in Latin America, Asia-Pacific region and China. Its market share in Europe, where it dominates, declined, according to Nokia.