Nokia to Ship 100 Million Camera Phones

HELSINKI, Finland — Finland’s Nokia Corp. announced Wednesday it will use high-quality Carl Zeiss optics for the cameras in its mobile phones, expecting to sell more than 100 million camera phones this year.

The world’s biggest mobile phone maker said cooperation with the German company will bring "design expertise and stringent quality requirements … for high-end camera devices."

Nokia’s new handsets will feature 2-megapixel cameras, and its new mobile devices will have an active battery power of five hours with a 10-day standby period, Nokia said.

"Consumers will be able to capture, share, store and print better quality images" as a result of optics provided by Oberkochen, Germany-based Carl Zeiss AG, Nokia said.

Speaking at a presentation of its new N Series handsets, Nokia’s chief executive Jorma Ollila said the Finnish company expects to sell more than 25 million smart phones in 2005, as well as ship 40 million mobile devices with MP3 music players.

"Digital camera phones have really been the growth area in the mobile handset business and Nokia has turned to be a clear leader in this area," Ollila said at an industry fair in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Separately, Boston-based research firm Strategy Analytics said Wednesday that Nokia had gained market share during the first two months of the year to 31.3 percent, up from 28.5 percent a year earlier. Its chief rival, Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola Corp., also made slight gains to 16.7 percent, followed by South Korean Samsung Electronics Co. at 14.2 percent.

Nokia has sales in 130 countries and about 55,500 employees.

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On the Net:

Nokia site: http://www.nokia.com