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

To: tradeyourstocks who wrote (17201)	12/10/2001 3:45:28 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 34857

Shares in Nokia Corp were lower in early afternoon trading on unconfirmed reports that some of the company's new GPRS handsets may not work perfectly with the oldest GPRS networks.. See what happens when a handset is rushed out the door in order to avoid complaints about more delays? Probably related to the PBCCH dust-up, a sure-fire problem so easy to anticipate even I caught on. Nokia: No wine before its time, no handset out before it's foolproof, fully-tested, yada, yada, yada.........quack, quack, quack.

To: tradeyourstocks who wrote (17201)	12/10/2001 5:03:22 PM
From: 49thMIMOMander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

"GPRS handsets may not work perfectly with the oldest GPRS networks", great old stuff. How much out of touch do one need to be to get something published with ananova??

To: tradeyourstocks who wrote (17201)	12/10/2001 5:27:07 PM
From: JohnG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

Nokia further delays. By Tero Kuittinen Special to TheStreet.com 12/10/2001 03:20 PM EST At its midquarter presentation Tuesday, Nokia (NOK:NYSE ADR - news - commentary - research - analysis) is widely expected to stick by its 25% quarter-on-quarter revenue growth estimate for its phone unit. Actually, Nokia will likely give somewhat softer guidance -- perhaps around 15% to 20% phone revenue growth. The first-quarter guidance for 2002 will probably be extremely vague at best. For the phone industry, the next two quarters may reflect a continuing drought in upgrade sales. Nokia's specific problems for the next two quarters involve a number of product delays, and the resulting impact is now ricocheting across the company's product lines. The first-generation GPRS phone 8310 is going on sale just now, and its sister model 6310 is expected to arrive in about two to three weeks. GPRS is the most widely adopted mobile data upgrade globally; in the medium term, GPRS phone sales are essential for the revival of GSM upgrade sales. Not Happy Together? But Nokia's second-generation GPRS model 6510 is slated to arrive during the first quarter of 2002, meaning that the 6310 would arrive nearly simultaneously with its supposedly upgraded model. Further blurring the distinction between the 6310 and 6510 models is that the 6510 won't feature Java support, as was widely expected back in November. A likely result is cannibalization of one of these two very similar business models. The most likely outcome is that the more compact 6510 will drain sales of the 6310. Compounding Nokia's winter model-launch challenges are the surprisingly weak December launch numbers for the 5510 youth phone and the likely arrival of the 7650 camera model in June. The earliest price point for the 5510 is probably too high: MP3 is still a relatively obscure selling point for phones, and the company's ability to command a 40% to 50% price premium over rival teen models is uncertain. Finding the right price level for a hybrid model is tough, and the first stab Nokia made at pricing the 5510 apparently missed the mark. Nobody knows when and how much the 7650 will cannibalize the sales of high-end monochrome models, but the spring arrival of a color-display photo phone will clearly damage current sales. Surveys in Europe show strong early awareness and demand for camera phones; consumer interest outpaces demand for GPRS phones by a mile -- probably because mainstream consumers don't associate GPRS itself with any notable new features. Data speed alone is perking up consumers. Operators' inability to offer solid GPRS billing solutions or support for the new multimedia messaging service, or MMS, is adding to high-end phone launch problems. MMS is a crucially important new service because it adds audio and graphical features to plain text messaging. It can also act as an anchor for photo-messaging. Operators are basically loath to invest much in GPRS or MMS before their commercial potential is proven. But phone vendors aren't finding much success in launching GPRS models before operator support for services such as MMS is solid. Features such as premium pricing for individual messaging services are important, but their implementation in major markets is agonizingly slow. Misery and Company Moreover, Ericsson (ERICY:Nasdaq ADR - news - commentary - research - analysis) evidently hasn't been able to ramp up its key phones, the T-65 and the T-68, to satisfying volumes during the fourth quarter. Flextronics (FLEX:Nasdaq - news - commentary - research - analysis) doesn't seem to have gotten a grip on the specific challenges of phone manufacturing; the high-precision techniques involved in this area are very different from cranking out laptops or game consoles. (Flextronics is basically taking over the manufacturing of all Ericsson phones.) Flextronics has probably been forced recently to outsource some of the T-65 cover manufacturing to keep its commitments. When the key contractor needs to contract manufacturing further, things aren't going exactly according to plan. A bigger headache is the color model T-68, which has apparently been plagued by extremely low initial production volumes. The phone could be a great seller -- but that's academic as long as the production isn't on a real volume level. This creates flashbacks to the days of the T-29 launch, another ultra-lightweight luxury model that Ericsson introduced with much fanfare. That model was destroyed commercially by an excruciating, 12-month volume ramp-up. The problems involved in making the transition from basic phones to complex gizmos radiate more or less across the sector. Last February, Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq - news - commentary - research - analysis) announced a glamorous smart-phone debut model, to be manufactured by U.K.-based Sendo and launched in retail during "autumn of 2001." A few weeks ago, Microsoft announced again the debut of this model -- apparently for 2002. The original plan was that the Sendo announcement would send scores of jealous phone vendors to Redmond, Wash., to sign license deals and trigger a wave of new phones using Microsoft's mobile software platforms. Nothing like that happened. Microsoft's "phantom launch" approach may work like a charm in the PC sector, but it isn't getting much traction in the phone industry. Why not? Well, the phone vendors know a thing or two about this strategy themselves. thestreet.com ---------- <ggg> Is there an elephant in the room that Europe is loathe to address? Why won't carriers market GPRS? As Seybold noted, why are there less than 200,000 users of wireless packet-data services on 28 networks in Europe? Are carriers unable to maintain voice quality while attempting to bring data on line? Is this the dirty secret? EMC observes it not unusual that networks - which by all appearances are nearly unused - are only capable of 15-20kbs speeds. Others report chronic problems with latency and lost packets. Is GPRS capable - as regards simple performance and capacity - of providing even rudimentary data services on loaded networks? Is GPRS capable of providing a bridge to 3G? Is this the elephant? What will become of Nokia's promise for millions of GPRS handsets sold in 2001? Will Nokia sell each subscriber 5, 10 or 15?

To: tradeyourstocks who wrote (17201)	12/11/2001 11:24:41 AM
From: Eric L	Respond to of 34857

re: Tim Luke of Lehman Brothers on CNBC about NOK. "What you are seeing is very strong execution from a market leader ... ... Nokia could well wind up with record 38% to 40% market share for the quarter " .... which of course would put them above 35% market share for the year, up from 30.6% in 2000, up from 26.9% in 1999, up from 24.3% in 1998 when they passed Motorola for number one, and up from 20.1% in 1997. Comments from others ... "Nokia has an innate ability to perform in difficult markets and the group has proved this again today. This statement has given the markets confidence to extend the rally in technology stocks," - Jamie Wood, head of European communication technology at JP Morgan - "This is a very bullish statement from Nokia. There had been some speculation that Nokia might issue a sales, or even profit warning. Nokia has a much clearer picture of the fourth quarter sales trend now as we are now in the middle of the final month of the quarter and we have two shopping weekends behind us since the Capital Markets Day." - Theo Kitz, Merck Finck analyst - . - Eric -