Nokia Sees Drop in Global Consumer Spending for Mobiles

Nokia issued new financial guidance for its fourth quarter 2008 and full year 2009, saying that the global economic slowdown, combined with unprecedented currency volatility, has resulted in a sharp pull back in global consumer spending including for mobile devices. Nokia said 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 its trade customers.


As a result, Nokia now expects that the industry mobile device volumes will be lower in the fourth quarter 2008 than previously anticipated at approximately 330 million mobile devices. This is sequentially up from the estimated 310 million in the third quarter of 2008. This would result in a current estimate of industry mobile volume of 1.24 billion in 2008, instead of the earlier estimated 1.26 billion units, up from 1.14 billion units Nokia estimated for 2007. - Nokia continues to expect its mobile device market share in the fourth quarter 2008 to be at the same level or slightly up, sequentially.


For 2009, Nokia is now predicting that the industry mobile device volumes will be down compared to 2008, impacted by the continuing overall economic slowdown. Nokia Siemens Networks' preliminary estimate is that the mobile infrastructure and fixed infrastructure and related services market will be down in euro terms in 2009 compared to 2008.


Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks both plan to take steps to reduce their costs appropriately to the market conditions.
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