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Nokia Boosts Market Share to 33 Percent in Fourth Quarter

Posted on: Thursday, 3 March 2005, 12:00 CST

Mar. 3--Nokia continued to regain market share in the fourth quarter, according to an industry research report.

Gartner, a tech research firm based in Connecticut, said Wednesday that Nokia sold about 64 million phones worldwide for the fourth quarter, raising its share to 33 percent from 30.9 percent for the previous quarter.

The world's largest handset maker stumbled early last year, underestimating design and technology breakthroughs and giving smaller rivals a chance to gain ground. The company's market share fell to 28.8 percent.

Nokia cut prices and introduced new models to grab back what it had lost.

For the year, the company sold more than 200 million phones, bringing its share of the market to 30.7 percent, down from 34.8 percent in 2003.

Total worldwide sales of mobile phones reached 674 million.

Ben Wood, an analyst at Gartner's British office, said Nokia's lineup of phones and high-volume, low-tier products will sustain its position in 2005. Mobile phones traditionally break into three tiers: The lowest offer limited features, and the highest are smart phones.

"But it must regain the initiative in terms of brand and technology leadership in the face of strong competition from other top five vendors," Wood said.

Nokia, whose Americas unit is based in Irving, has seen increased competition from Motorola, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson. Those rivals brought newer products, including popular clamshell and camera phones, to consumers more quickly.

Led by its RAZR series, Motorola regained its second position ahead of Samsung. Motorola had 16.3 percent market share for the quarter, compared with Samsung's 12.2 percent, Gartner said.

Samsung's handset headquarters is in Richardson.

Gartner said the North American market got a boost from people replacing old phones. The market also got a push from carriers offering multiple phones for free on family plans and from declining prices for camera and color phones.

Gartner predicted that worldwide mobile phone sales would exceed 730 million.

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NOK, MOT, SSNLF, SI, SIE, SNE, ERICY,

Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas)

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