Nokia predicts almost 1B handsets sold in 2006

The world’s No. 1 cellphone maker today projected a 15% growth in handset shipment volumes this year over 2005’s 795 million. That would mean 914 million new handsets in customers hands—just shy of half the world’s total subscriber base.

Speaking at Nokia’s annual general meeting in Helsinki, outgoing CEO Jorma Ollila said that due to such increase in volumes, the worldwide penetration of wireless users would hit the 3 billion mark much earlier than anticipated—in 2008 instead of at the end of the decade like many analysts have predicted. The worldwide market just hit 2 billion last year, and most of the developed world’s markets are already fairly well penetrated. Ollila said that 80% of the next 1 billion subscribers would come from the developing world and other emerging markets.

“We have seen the first era of an industry that I have no doubt will continue to transform,” Ollila said in a statement.

If those huge increases come from emerging markets, Nokia and other vendors can expect much smaller margins on their phones though. There is already talk of scaling the price of the handset down to $15 for countries like India, which would cut severely into average cost per handset globally. But according to Nokia’s projections, there is still a significant market in the developed world. If 914 million handsets are sold in 2006, many of them will have to be replacement handsets, including upgrades t