Nokia Raises Guidance, Announces Mobile E-Mail Product (NOK 3Q05 Update Conf Call Quotes)

Nokia (ticker: NOK) today raised sales and profit guidance for 3Q05 and introduced a new mobile E-Mail product -- 'Nokia Business Center' -- that will challenge Research In Motion's (ticker: RIMM) enterprise-focused BlackBerry. The adjustment in guidance was due to more stable unit pricing than Nokia previously forsaw, alongside more robust sales than previously expected and lower OpEx. Excerpts from the Nokia conference call:

The estimated higher quarter three net sales are coming from continued strong mobile device market, expected Nokia share gains in quarter three, both sequentially and year-on-year, and ASPs being down less than initially expected, driven by regional mix shift towards the higher ASP markets, and also the relatively firm pricing environment…

The estimated higher quarter three diluted EPS is coming from higher revenue growth than initially expected, good cost control, specifically we expect OpEx to be down sequentially, both in absolute and as a percentage of sales. This is as planned as well. Marketing will be down the most.

Let's go back a little bit to what we said coming out of Q2. What we had said there that the industry and Nokia would see some decline through the end of the year in average selling prices, and we would see some decline in gross margins, we believed, through the end of the year. We saw a little less of that decline for Nokia specifically so far in Q3 than what we had predicted. But those trends continue. And we have done better because we have got the device volume up more than expected in Q3 here so far.

(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)