Handset Giant Forecasts Sales Hike in China
BEIJING, February 5 (Xinhua) -- The Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia expects its handset sales to grow by 10 to 15 percent in China this year, China Daily reports Tuesday.Experts said that the 10-15 percent growth forecast was not a bold one as China's overall mobile phone market is set to grow by nearly 40 percent.
Urpo Karjalainen, president of Nokia (China) Investment Co. Ltd,said he is confident that Nokia will grab a substantial market share to become the largest phone seller in China as new models are earmarked for launch.
"We were very close to being No. 1 in China last year," Karjalainen said Monday in Beijing.
No official figures reveal which company is the largest here but it is widely believed Motorola and Nokia are ahead of other competitors, says the paper.
As China's Ministry of Information Industry predicts a total of55 million new subscribers will be added this year, Nokia said it will offer more new models to cater for the highly segmented market in China.
Besides, Nokia will also pay greater attention to mounting pressures from China's local mobile phone makers. Despite being relatively inexperienced, local companies have launched competitive products which have enabled them to increase their market share from nowhere to around 15 percent.
According to the paper, another issue key to Nokia's handset sales growth will be the CDMA ( code division multiple addresses) network China Unicom has just opened. It plans to have 50 million users in three years.
Although Nokia has not got the license to supply CDMA handsets in the Chinese market, Karjalainen revealed Nokia was in discussions with local partner Capitel, which has got a CDMA license.
Nokia's sales in China last year hit 3.01 billion U.S. dollars and exports grew by 50 percent to 2.22 billion U.S. dollars. Chinais Nokia's second largest market in the world after the United States.
The company's cumulative investment in China has topped 2.04 billion U.S. dollars.
Nokia predicts the global shipment of mobile phones will be 420million to 440 million units this year.
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