Well... when Finland had the worst recession in post-war Europe in 1991 and our GDP contracted by 7% there was a total crash in car and personal computer sales. But when you look at the mobile phone sales graph for 1988-1998 you can't tell where the recession starts and where the 6% growth that followed kicks in. The sales just steamed ahead even when unemployment spiked up to 17% and people started whispering darkly about IMF. Korea is currently in a similar situation and no matter how much I have hoped for a handset sales crash there (yeah, I'm petty and small-minded), it doesn't seem to be materializing in this situation, either.
So if in the two worst economic crashes of the second half of the century, in two totally different cultures and economies, handset sales are able to retain their vigor, I'm pretty sanguine about the rest of the world as well. For some reason car, PC and home electronics sales seem to be far more vulnerable to consumer sentiment.
Mike, Nokia's current CDMA models really aren't their proudest hour. I've heard that Nokia intends to introduce the CDMA version of the 6100 series in the first half of 1999, maybe they will get their act together then. What the hell is this Audiovox anyway? They aren't even contenders in Europe.
I had a sobering discussion earlier today with some people from the lab about whether Clinton smoked the cigar afterwards or not. This is no Harris Poll, but apparently most Finnish molecular biologists tend to think the answer is yes. When I later reflected on this I came to the conclusion that
A) Sadly, the coarsening of public discourse is apparently a global phenomenon
B) Clinton enemies won't stop at nothing short of total annihilation
C) Just wait until WSJ and the arab press sink their teeth into this one... hard to tell which is more hostile towards Clinton at this point
D) This will probably lop another 100 points off the Dow tomorrow
E) If they have a congressional hearing on this topic I will switch into gold, I swear.
Tero
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