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Technology Stocks : Nokia (NOK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lang who wrote (2070)	9/8/1999 9:37:00 AM
From: tero kuittinen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

I wish I knew. Nokia does not talk much about their component suppliers. I don't know about this "sole-supplier" status. It seems that the company's outsourcing strategy is to set several contractors against each other - for example the plastic parts orders are spread across several companies, two of which recently had IPO's in Finland. One hot topic here in Finland is the question of which one will do better, Eimo or Perlos? Or will Nokia force them to compete each other out of decent profit margins in the future? Actually, it's pretty interesting, because these new features in handsets are so demanding to deliver: exchangeable covers, scroll buttons, magnifying displays, metal-hued finishing, etc. Some people are calling these Eimo and Perlos "plastic bucket firms" - some think that the advanced injection moulding techniques and such justify calling them high-tech companies. The question of which contractors can benefit from the situation where wireless gadgets turn into 20 million unit sellers is a good one - the dynamics of the marketplace are totally different now when contactors have to deliver instantaneous production volume ramp-ups and annual updating of the production equipment. There might be a future global giant lurking here somewhere. Tero