Technology news and Jobs arrow VIRTUALISATION arrow Shock horror! Nokia sees global handset market shrinking in 2009
Shock horror! Nokia sees global handset market shrinking in 2009 E-mail
by Stuart Corner   
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
The global mobile phone market has seen decades of sustained growth, but handset market leader Nokia expects handset sales will shrink in 2009. Ovum, however expects the market for connections to keep growing.

Nokia this week issued a fourth quarter update and preliminary guidance for 2009, saying: "In the last few weeks, the global economic slowdown, combined with unprecedented currency volatility, has resulted in a sharp pull back in global consumer spending.

"The weaker consumer spending has impacted many industries, including the global mobile device market. The mobile device market has also been negatively impacted by the more limited availability of credit, which has limited the purchasing ability of some of our trade customers."

Nokia has reduced its estimate of handset shipments for Q4 to 330 million and its estimate for the whole of 2008 to 1.24 billion, down from its earlier estimate of 1.26 billion units. On these figure Q4 shipments would still be well ahead of the 310 million units sold in Q3. Nokia is predicting device volumes across the industry to be down in 2009 compared to 2008 but has said by how much.

Nokia says it is taking "decisive action" to significantly reduce its cost base. It will curtail use of external contractors, consultants and professional services and will further cut operating expenses in 2009 to respond appropriately to the market conditions.
 
"Nokia believes that its advantages of scale, leading brand, superior logistics, low cost and broad product portfolio are competitive advantages that will enable us to distinguish ourselves from the competition in a challenging 2009," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia CEO.

Market research firm Ovum, which has just released bullish five year forecasts for the Asian cellular market, however does not believe that Nokia's handset predictions are a reflection of the health of the cellular market overall, and may not even be indicative of the overall handset market.
CONTINUED



 
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