Nokia beats quarterly profit targets despite fall in sales

Nokia has beaten its quarterly profits target despite falling sales.

The company hopes 3G will give sales a major lift towards the end of 2002.

Like-for-like first quarter net sales fell by 12% to €7.01bn.

Pro forma operating profit was higher than market expectations at €1.29bn.

This compares with €1.44bn in the same period last year.

Jorma Ollila, Nokia's chairman and chief executive, says: "The company put in a solid overall performance for the first quarter 2002, with mobile phone profitability exceeding all expectations.

"The strong bottom line in our mobile handset business continues to be driven by Nokia's global leadership.

"Based on Nokia's preliminary research for the first quarter 2002, we believe we have at least maintained our estimated 37% share of the overall mobile phone market, in line with our long-term 40% share target."

Mr Ollila says continuing challenges in the network infrastructure environment led to lower-than-expected 2G investments in China and Europe.

He adds: "The transition to 3G is expected to positively impact sales in our networks business as we go into the second-half of the year, and we believe we are on track to achieving our 35% targeted share of the overall mobile infrastructure market in the long-term."