Nokia's 2Q market share up, content business growing

Helsinki-based Nokia surprised analysts this morning with better-than-expected  second-quarter earnings. Although the company's profit was down ($1.75 billion compared to $4.49 billion a year earlier) most of that difference was because the 2007 results included $2.98 billion gain from the formation of Nokia Siemens Networks. On the good news front, Nokia said that its global market share for handsets is at 40 percent, up from 38 percent a year ago. In addition, the company upgraded its forecast for the global handset market saying that mobile device volumes could grow more than its previous estimate of 10 percent in 2008.

In the U.S. market, where Nokia has been weak, the firm saw significant improvement thanks to two handsets, one that is offered by T-Mobile USA and another by AT&T.  Nokia executives expect this to improve even more as the company has had its first CDMA handset approved by Verizon Wireless for use on its network.

On the services front, Nokia says that with the additional support of Sony BMG Entertainment for Nokia Comes With Music service, the company now has three of the top music labels signed on for its service giving it access to 80 percent of the music catalog. The Nokia Music Store is now available in 10 markets and the company expects to have 14 stores open by year-end. In addition, N-Gage mobile games service, which became available during the quarter, has had more than 406,000 downloads.

For more:
- See this press release [1]

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