Nokia’s Incredible Shrinking Handset Market
by John Paczkowski
Posted on December 4, 2008 at 7:15 AM PT
Nokia’s Capital Markets Day event is proving quite the downer, and the day’s only just begun. This morning the company cut its global handset market forecast for the second time in three weeks, warning that the slowdown in the industry is worse than expected. On Nov. 14, Nokia (NOK) lowered its fourth-quarter 2008 outlook to 330 million mobile devices shipped. It seems even that was too optimistic. The company now expects device volume for the quarter to fall below 330 million and total device volume for 2008 to slip below 1.24 billion. Worse, Nokia says volume in 2009 will fall by at least five percent from 2008 levels. Said Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, “2009 will be challenging for our industry.”
Hell of an understatement, given the news. Hope they serve alcohol at that Capital Markets Day event….
