Signs of Growth at NSN

NSN's news comes only days after fierce rival Ericsson AB reported strong fourth-quarter and full-year growth.

The equipment vendor's figures were released Thursday as part of parent Nokia's earnings report, which showed the Finnish handset giant had reported a 6 percent increase in fourth-quarter revenues to €12.65 billion ($17.37 billion), but a 21 percent drop in net income to €742 million ($1.02 billion).

In its report, Nokia stated that it believes the market for mobile and fixed infrastructure and related services (such as managed services) was about the same as in 2009 (in euros), and that NSN "grew slightly faster than the market in euro terms in 2010."

That growth will have come from the strategic focus on reclaiming market share in 2010.

And the vendor expects its first-quarter revenues to be in the range of €2.8 billion to €3.1 billion ($3.84 billion to $4.25 billion), which would be an improvement on the first three months of 2010.

Q4 details
NSN's fourth-quarter revenues of nearly €4 billion ($5.5 billion) were boosted by marked improvements in Greater China and Asia/Pacific, and an overall improvement in component availability (something that should help NSN's rivals too).

The company's Global Services division contributed €1.8 billion ($2.4 billion) in revenues, or 45 percent of the quarter's total.

NSN noted, though, that margins were affected by "general price pressure on certain products, a higher proportion of lower margin products in the business mix and to some extent project execution related challenges in the Middle East and Africa."

(C) Light Reading Europe