Nokia Reports Rise in Profits for 2Q

Finnish cell phone giant Nokia Corp. on Thursday announced that profits rose 46 percent in the second quarter, although sales declined 6 percent.

The Espoo, Finland, company had a net profit of 862 euros (U.S. $862 million) for the quarter, compared with ($589 million) in the same quarter last year.

Net sales fell to 6.9 billion euros from 7.3 billion euros.

Sales for Nokias handset grew by 1 percent compared with the previous year, but sales for Nokia Networks back-end telecom equipment showed a year-on-year decline of 22 percent. Officials attributed this to lower-than-expected investments from Europe and the Asia Pacific countries and predicted a 10 percent decline in wireless infrastructure sales in 2002.

But Chairman and CEO Jorma Ollila said the company is hopeful for the future of third generation wireless networks and multimedia messaging applications. Ten of the phones the company will release in 2002 will have color screens, he said, and six will support MMS.

“Nokia is preparing for a string of new product launches for the remainder of the year, including a major step in September with the introduction of our first dual-mode WCDMA/GSM [wideband code division multiple access/ global system for mobile communications networks] phone and our first 3G network,” he said. “Depending on operator schedules in WCDMA networks, we expect the 3G business system to be mature enough for commercial handset shipments by early 2003.”

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