Nokia breaches 40% mark in handset share

By its own estimates Nokia achieved 40% global handset market share in the fourth quarter after a strong holiday sales season and increased dominance in the developing markets. Nokia is clearly benefiting from Motorola's failure to execute on its new products, but Nokia's momentum may have inspired CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo to be a bit more daring. He claimed Nokia would regain its lost market share in North America, the only region where Nokia is not the market leader.

North America is dominated by hometown vendor Motorola and Korean manufacturers Samsung and LG Electronics. After Nokia's exit and re-entrance into the CDMA market, Nokia dropped far down in sales, suffering not just in CDMA business but losing GSM market share to its competitors.

Nokia boosted its earnings 44% in Q4 to Euro 1.84 billion ($2.71 billion) off sales of Euro 15.72 billion ($23.16 billion), itself a 34% increase year-over-year. The results sent Nokia's stock soaring on the European and American exchanges. Its advanced depository shares climbed as high as 8% on the New York Stock Exchange despite the troubled financial pressures faced by the markets.

Nokia Siemens Networks recorded sales of Euro 4.58 billion ($6.75 billion) but has yet to record a profit as it stills incurs restructuring costs from its merger with Siemens' communications business last year. NSN, however, did see its biggest regional revenue gain in North America between the third and fourth quarters. Sales jumped 60% to Euro 243 million ($358 million), which likely reflects shipments of its WiMAX gear for Sprint's Xohm network.