Nokia, which has just clawed back its share of the market to more than 30% after a bruising battle with competitors, is sticking to its ambition to hold a 40% market share. It confidence in its ability to build market share is based on the growing importance of the smartphone market, where it believes it has advantages over rivals.
By 2008, Nokia forecasts that the camera phone market will be more than 600 million units, and the smartphone market more than 200 million units.
In a presentation to the investment community in New York, Nokia said it is aiming at faster-than-market growth in mobile devices and infrastructure. It said it aims to achieve a mobile device operating margin of 14% in the next two three years.
By the end of 2006, it hopes to bring overall R&D expenditure down to 9% to 10% of net sales, with mobile device R&D down to 8%, and infrastructure R&D to 14%.
Nokia has been stung by criticism of the company by investment analysts after it missed fashion trends in the handset market earlier this year, and a growing belief that the market is maturing and Nokia’s days of enormous growth are behind it.
Nokia aims to launch 40 new mobile devices in 2005, up from 35 this year, and two-thirds of the new models will have cameras, and more than half will be clamshells, slides, and other non-monoblock models.
CEO Jorma Ollilasaid the company’s volume advantage and cost leadership make it possible for the company to profitably compete in all mobile device segments from entry-level to high-end.
He said mobile device volume growth in 2005 will be fastest in Latin America, EMEA, and North America, while expansion in Asia-Pacific and China will be slightly slower.
