Nokia ships 75M phones in Q1

Nokia today reported a 40% boost in handsets shipped in the first quarter, joining No. 2 vendor Motorola in an outstanding quarter for phone sales.

Nokia shipped 75.1 million handsets in the first three months of 2006, a 40% increase over last year’s first quarter. Nokia didn’t manage to beat its own fourth-quarter numbers like rival Motorola, which boosted its cell phone output 3% sequentially and 61% year-over-year in its own record-breaking quarter. By both of their own estimates, Motorola and Nokia increased their global market share to 21% and 35%, respectively.

Meanwhile, Nokia and Motorola’s next closest competitors also saw gains. Samsung shipped 29 million handsets in the first quarter, 500,000 shy of its estimates but still a new record 18% gain for the company over last year’s first quarter. LG shipped 15.6 million phones in the first three months of the year, a 42% increase year-over-year, but it appeared to be losing some of the momentum it gained in 2005. And Sony Ericsson shipped 13.3 million phones, a 41% gain.

Nokia’s increased phone sales bolstered revenues of Euro 9.5 billion ($11.7 billion), a 29% increase year over year, and profits of Euro 1.05 billion ($1.29 billion), a 21% increase. Nokia’s other divisions, however also contributed to those results. It’s multimedia division, which includes games, applications and software, surpassed its networks division for the first time, posting Euro 1.76 billion in sales compared to Euro 1.70 billion from networks. It’s only division to suffer lower sales was its smallest, the enterprise solutions group, falling from Euro 307 million in Q1 of 2005 to Euro 186 million.

Nokia’s biggest handset gains were in the North America, where volumes almost doubled to 8.4 million handset in the quarter, and in Latin America and Asia, where Nokia sold a combined 34.4 million handsets. Meanwhile its networks division, while boosting its sales by 19%, saw its operating profits fall by 33% to Euro 149 million. Nokia officials said that sales were lackluster in Europe and sales in lower-margin sales in developing countries where price competition is fierce weren’t enough to offset the performance in its core market.