Friday, Sep 07, 2007
Gulf News
Dubai: Nokia expects to sell more than 212 million mobile devices in the Middle East and Africa region by 2010, company executives revealed yesterday.
Click here to see the Gitex event details (pdf)
The world's number one mobile phone maker sold 106 million devices in the 61-country region in 2006, and expects sales volumes to more than double in the next four years.
Last quarter, Middle East and Africa (MEA) contributed 17 per cent of global sales, said Nokia's regional senior vice president Timo Toikkanen. "These are fairly impressive, broad numbers," he said.
By 2010, Nokia also expects global subscriptions to hit four billion, and 25 per cent of the growth will come from the MEA region.
Toikkanen made his comments during a welcome presentation for the first Middle East visit by Nokia chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, who inaugurated the company's new headquarters in Media City.
To prepare for this growth, the Finnish company said it would open eight new country offices in the region, in Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Cameroon and Uganda, adding to its 12 existing regional offices.
Low-end phones from Nokia dominate the Middle East and African market, according to market research firm GFK.
Nokia makes eight out of the top ten most popular phones, and only two of those are in the higher-end converged devices category, the N70 and N73.
According to the survey, the top selling phones are the Nokia 1100i, one of the cheapest handsets in the market, followed by the Nokia 1112, the T600, and the 1100.
Also making the top ten are the Samsung SGH-E250 and the Motorola F3.
And while most MEA mobile purchases are to replace existing handsets, Nokia still sees the area as the highest growth rates in the world in the next three to four years.
Coming from a mobile penetration rate of about eight per cent in 2003, in 2007 that will only increase to the high 20s, Toikkanen said.
Firm's handset sale in region
Gulf News 2007. All rights reserved.
