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

To: Eric L who wrote (10001)	3/22/2001 8:43:12 AM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

re: Nokia Korea CDMA Handset Launch ... market share target seems pretty aggressive for first year. >> Nokia Enters in Local Mobile Phone Market Korea Times March 21, 2001 Nokia, the world's biggest mobile handset maker, unveiled yesterday two code division multiple access (CDMA) cellular phones new to the Korean market. The European telephone giant's challenge is expected to change the local mobile phone market, where domestic brands, such as Samsung and LG Electronics, hold 66 percent of the market. Although Nokia leads the world in GSM technology (global system for mobile communication), which is dominant in Europe and Japan, the company also has a competitive edge in CDMA, a Nokia spokesman said. In order to enter Korea's telecommunications equipment market, the company has completed technological inter-operability between mobile handsets and the local network. To do this, Nokia contacted two cellular phone service operators, SK Telecom and Shinsegi Telecomm, and three personal communications service (PCS) providers, LG Telecom, Korea Telecom Freetel and M.com. Nokia will release another four CDMA models in April and local equipment maker Telson Electronics will produce their products, it said. Based on its powerful brand recognition and technological superiority, the company plans to secure more than 10 percent of the market by the end of this year. As of the final quarter last year, Nokia was the number one manufacturer in the world with a 33.9 percent market share in the international cellular phone market. The figure nearly trebled that of number two maker Motorola of the USA (12.7 percent). Last year, the company grossed around $27 billion of net profit and is supplying its products to more than 130 countries around the world. Meanwhile, market research firm Gartner Dataquest yesterday gave the mobile phone industry a fillip, saying it expected worldwide sales of 507 million cellular telephones in 2001, well over the industry's own expectations. << - Eric -

To: Eric L who wrote (10001)	3/22/2001 5:13:34 PM
From: EJhonsa	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 34857

Additional information on the new Nokia phones can be found here, if anyone's interested: nokia.com nokia.com nokia.com Also, Siemens recently put out a couple of PRs regarding a new GPRS model (S45), set to come to market in July, and a GSM-GPRS (900-1900)/TDMA (800-1900) quad-mode (S47 - no AMPS support) slated for a Q4 release: siemens.com siemens.com To be honest, I wasn't very impressed with the Nokia GPRS releases. Don't get me wrong: I think the 8310, as well as the non-GPRS-supporting 3330, ought to be strong sellers. However, given the relatively tame nature of the upgrades Nokia provided to its handset line last year (save, of course, for the non-mass-market 9210), I figured that they'd use the 2001 GPRS releases to unload some heavy artillery. Perhaps a couple of phones with color screens, or a model with Epoc support, or a phone with a built-in MP3 player - something more than merely repackaging the 62xx and 82xx lines and adding Bluetooth and FM radio support, respectively. Last year, sacrificing bleeding-edge functionality in the name of cost was definitely a good idea. This year, with the mass-production of phones containing support for packet-switched internet access becoming a reality, with Moore's Law having continued on its merry path for yet another twelve months, and with Ericsson (T68) and Siemens (S45) having stepped up the quality of their high-end mainstream offerings (in retrospect, the R380 and the SL45 were definitely too expensive to be considered mainstream items), waiting another year to provide some truly data-centric mainstream models could be a risky bet. One theory that recently crossed my mind is that Nokia could be intentionally doing this in an attempt to make sure that W-CDMA rollouts will be successful. After all, the company does stand to be paid a fortune in W-CDMA infrastructure contracts should the technology roll out as planned, and making sure that there's a "wow factor" involved with the release of the first W-CDMA handsets would definitely help in making sure that this goal is attained. Also, as we all know, a number of carriers are already starting to have doubts as to how fast their 3G investments will pay off, and thus the release of W-CDMA phones that are, in the eyes of consumers, immediately able to stand out from their GPRS brethren would definitely help with regards to public perception of the technology, as well as the confidence placed by major carriers in its long-term prospects; and given the nature of the 3G prototypes Nokia continues to show on its site (http://www.nokia.com/press/nps_photo_archive/1,3009,future,00.html), as well as the commentary they've provided on the phone that they're set to release in Q3 2002, the idea may not be all that far-fetched. Of course, if this theory turns out to have even a grain of truth in it, it would put an end to all those great conspiracy theories brandished by a group of investors in a certain company about Nokia wanting to intentionally delay the widespread proliferation of W-CDMA. Thus, speaking purely from a religious perspective, I'll completely understand if some readers prove unwilling to consider it :-). Eric