Nokia captures 39 per cent of handset market

Nokia has increased its share of the handset market to 39 per cent, pushing profits up 85 per cent year on year, according to the company's third-quarter results (PDF).

The statement said that the firm shipped 111.7 million mobile phones, 26 per cent up on the previous year, and that profits had risen from €845m (£590m) to €1.56bn year on year.

Mobile phones made up 68 per cent of the company's operating profit, with 28 per cent coming from multimedia and enterprise business making up 4.29 per cent.

Industry analyst Ovum said that the results were impressive and comfortably beat market expectations on profitability.

"In reviewing the results we need to remember that Q3 last year was not great for Nokia," said Martin Garner, mobile practice leader at Ovum.

"At that time the mid-range portfolio was ageing, there were no thin phones and the partial withdrawal from the CDMA business brought significant exceptional charges, all of which served to inflate the growth rates in today's numbers."

Garner said that the results were still very strong and the only concern was that Nokia had lost smartphone market share in Europe, Latin America and Middle East and Africa.

This was despite a restructuring charge of €86m for Nokia Siemens Networks, which impacted that division's operating profit.

Nokia also sold €60m worth of real estate during the period.

"The Enterprise Solutions division broke even for the first time in Q2 07 and continued its improvement this quarter, helped along by significant growth of enterprise devices, bringing sales growth of 105 per cent," Garner added.