Quotes From Nokia's (NOK) 3Q04 Conference Call

Nokia's sales were hit by price declines, component shortages and a loss of market share in North America. The bright spot was that unsold inventories, particularly in China, were not as bad as many suspected. Here it is in 200 of Nokia's own words:

Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript:

Net sales were 6.9M Euros, up by 1% compared to Q3, 2003. In constant currency sales were up 8%… gross margin declined sequentially by 2 percentage points to 36.4%… driven by primarily 2 things: …Mobile Phones … pricing actions… led to lower level profitability… Networks the gross margins… lower… due to product and market mix.

Mobile device market was somewhat stronger than initially expected… grew [7%]… strong replacement market particularly in western Europe and new subscribers in Russia, Africa, Latin America and China... global subscription base exceeded 1.6 billion representing a global penetration of 26%.

Nokia… despite some component tightness we have slightly exceeded our initial volume plans… Europe, Middle East, Africa was the fastest growing market… share declined in the Americas, North America being particularly challenging.

Inventories declined 1% year on year… channel inventories went down by a couple of days. In China… lowest level in 18 months.

Networks sales grew by 21% … strong demand in emerging markets… strong capacity increases in Western Europe and high penetration in Asian markets.

[Q4 Guidance]…currently expect that Nokia net sales would range between 8.4-8.6 billion Euros [versus 8.8 billion Euros last year]... usual seasonality...