Nokia says sales up, neglects to mention profit down.

Nokia Thailand has issued a press release championing how the Finnish mobile phone giant has seen its net sales increase by 79% year on year while elsewhere, AP points out that Nokia's profit has nosedived 90 percent.

Nokia reports Q1 2009 net sales of EUR 9.3 billion (433 billion baht)

Services net sales of EUR 150 million, up 79%

Bangkok: 17 April 2009 – Nokia, the world leader in mobile communications, today announced its business operation result for the ffirst quarter of 2009. Nokia Q1 2009 net sales were EUR 9.3 billion (433 billion baht). - Services net sales of EUR 150 million (billings of EUR 166 million), up 79% year on year. Nokia estimated mobile device market share of 37% in Q1 2009, unchanged from Q4 2008.

"In what has been an exceptionally tough environment, we continue to invest in a focused manner in consumer Internet services delivered across our broad portfolio of mobile devices. Combined, these solutions will drive our future growth. As an example in Q1, I am especially pleased with the performance of our first mass market touch product, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Together with Comes With Music, it is a great example of Nokia providing solutions that consumers value," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia CEO.

In the area of music, Nokia benefited from a strong performance by the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, its first mass market touch product, which shipped 2.6 million units during the quarter. More than 3 million units have shipped since the device's launch in late November last year. During the first quarter, Nokia further strengthened its offering of devices optimized for music, announcing the 5730 XpressMusic, the Nokia 5330 XpressMusic and the Nokia 5030. Nokia also extended its Comes With Music service - an 'all-you-can-eat' music offer where users can download freely from millions of tracks for a pre-defined period of time and keep those tracks once the period is up - to Australia and Singapore. Additionally, Nokia extended Nokia Music Store, its chain of digital music stores, to 18 countries.

Of the total industry mobile device volumes, converged mobile device industry volumes in the first quarter 2009 increased to 36.0 million units, based on Nokia's preliminary estimate, compared with an estimated 33.3 million units in the first quarter 2008. Our own converged mobile device volumes were 13.7 million units in the first quarter 2009, compared with 14.6 million units in the first quarter 2008 and 15.1 million units in the fourth quarter 2008. We shipped approximately 5 million Nokia Nseries and over 3 million Nokia Eseries devices during the first quarter 2009.

Nokia expects industry mobile device volumes in the second quarter 2009 to be at approximately the same level or up slightly sequentially. Nokia expects its mobile device market share in the second quarter 2009 to increase sequentially and continues to target an increase in its market share in mobile devices in 2009.

* Exchange rate Baht 46.65 per Euro 1, as of April 17, 2009.