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

To: Typhoon who wrote (550)	2/23/1998 8:26:00 AM
From: tero kuittinen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

Hi Typhoon! A hot day in Hex for Nokia... it's courting the 100 dollar level. I wonder what's boosting the stock. The profit taking was surprisingly muted after the recent run-up. Someting called "Yankee Group Europe" has claimed that in 1997 Nokia had 32% share of GSM network sales in Europe, while Ericsson was held back at 29%. This is very good, if true; it would show that for the first time Nokia is leading Ericsson in combined GSM 900/1800 sales in their core market, Europe. Operators tend to be very conservative and get set in their buying patterns, so market share gains in infrastructure are much harder to achieve than in the handset business. This is an ideal situation for the W-CDMA sales competition... Nokia is just reaching new GSM market share heights when the upgrade topic is becoming relevant. Interesting news about the Elcoteq profit warning a while back. This company is a major contractor for both Nokia and Ericsson and a recent article in "Taloussanomat" claimed that most analysts are saying that its order problems are because of Ericsson's slowing sales, not Nokia's. Nokia is apparently manufacturing its new 6100-line phones itself, because it doesn't want to share the technology just yet. Ericson's sales growth did dip from 80% to 50% in the last quarter. This would be an excellent chance for Nokia to surge ahead. Too bad Nokia won't apparently get its 900/1800 dual mode phones into market until next fall. Motorola is already selling its version and Ericsson will introduce its model next summer. The wait is worth it if Nokia's dual phone is based on the 6100 line. This would give it a technological edge over Ericsson's and Motorola's phones which are built on slightly dated platforms. Anyway, the 900/1800 market is just gathering momentum, the sales are not that big yet. Next winter should be interesting. Do people go for dual phones, which are more expensive, but enable them to get cheaper call rates and wider coverage? Tero