NOKIA’s chief executive is coming under increasing pressure, as the world’s biggest mobile phone maker saw its earnings slump in the face of competition from Apple and RIM in the key smartphone segment.

Nokia and Qualcomm today announced that they have entered into a new agreement covering various standards including GSM, EDGE, CDMA, WCDMA, HSDPA, OFDM, WiMax, LTE and other technologies.

Nokia has predicted that it could exceed previous profit targets for the third quarter of 2003.

Nokia expects average selling prices of handsets to increase slightly during the third quarter.