Big smartphone growth for Nokia

Nokia - growth
Nokia - growth

Nokia sold more than 107 million mobile devices in the first quarter of 2010, a 16 per cent increase on sales last year, with the Finnish communications giant shifting 21.5 million smartphones and netbooks.

Although the main focus is on smartphones at the moment, there is still clearly a market for traditional mobile phones (dumbphones?) where sales were up 6.4 per cent, with emerging markets helping significantly.

But the headline will be in Nokia's huge increase in the sale of smartphones, mobile internet devices and its Nokia netbook.

The company reported a 57 percent increase on the same period in 2009, and this helped them to a 3 per cent increase in net sales to €9.5 billion (£8.25bn).

Delivered

"In Q1, Nokia delivered both year-on-year net sales and operating profit growth," said CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

"We continue to face tough competition with respect to the high end of our mobile device portfolio, as well as challenging market conditions on the infrastructure side.

"During the quarter, we also demonstrated our ability to deliver the Nokia smartphone experience to consumers on a global scale, with our smartphone shipments up by more than 50% year-on-year."

Another growth area was the company's navigation software on its high-end phones.

"The consumer response to the inclusion of our walk and drive navigation offering on our smartphones has been tremendous, added Kallasvuo.

"Since launching in January, 10 million Nokia smartphone users around the world have downloaded the offering."

Patrick Goss

Patrick Goss is the ex-Editor in Chief of TechRadar. Patrick was a passionate and experienced journalist, and he has been lucky enough to work on some of the finest online properties on the planet, building audiences everywhere and establishing himself at the forefront of digital content.  After a long stint as the boss at TechRadar, Patrick has now moved on to a role with Apple, where he is the Managing Editor for the App Store in the UK.