Nokia Sales Slide In North America

By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 1/27/2011

Espoo, Finland - North American sales of Nokia handsets and related services fell in units and dollars during 2010's fourth quarter and for the full year, the company's latest financial report shows.

Worldwide, the company's handset revenues rose 4 percent in the fourth quarter to 8.5 billion Eeuros and 5 percent for the year to 29.1 billion euros, while worldwide unit shipments fell 3 percent in the quarter to 123.7 million units but rose 5 percent for the year to 452.9 million units.

In North America, unit sales fell by 32 percent in the fourth quarter to 2.6 million units and by 18 percent for the full year to 11.1 million units. In euros, North American handset volume fell 9 percent to 233 million euros in the quarter and by 12 percent for the full year to 901 million euros.

Based on preliminary worldwide market-size estimates showing worldwide handset shipments growing 13 percent in 2010, Nokia estimated its worldwide unit share fell to 32 percent in 2011 compared with 2009's 34 percent.

Worldwide handset operating profits fell 16 percent in the quarter to 1.02 billion euros and fell 0.5 percent for the year to 3.3 billion euros.

When factoring in all of Nokia's business segments, including Navteq and Nokia Siemens networks, company-wide net sales grew 6 percent for the quarter and 4 percent for the year. Operating profit fell 23 percent in the fourth quarter to 884 million euros but for the year rose 73 percent to 2.07 billion euros.

In a statement, the company said it "delivered solid performance across all three of our businesses and generated outstanding cash flow." The company also said growth trends in mobile devices "continue to be encouraging," but the company acknowledged that it "faces some significant challenges in our competitiveness and our execution. In short, the industry changed, and now it's time for Nokia to change faster."

During an investors' conference call, chief executive Stephen Elop hinted as possible changes to the company's device lineup, which uses the Symbian OS. He said the company must consider "multiple ecosystem patterns" in a possible reference to the adoption of the Android or Windows OSs.