Nokia (NOK) showed increases in revenue and profits for the last quarter of 2006. Sales rose 13% to 11.7 billion euros and net income was up 19% to 1.27 billion euros. Handsets shipped in the quarter rose from 83.7 million units last year to 105.5 million.
Virtually all of Nokia’s numbers beat forecasts. The only cloud was that price-per-handset fell from 99 euros a year ago to 89 euros in the latest period.
To some extent, Wall St. has seen the solid results coming. It was tempting to think that Nokia would have poor results when Motorola (MOT) announced a dismal quarter. But, over the last three months, Motorola’s stock is off over 20% and Nokia’s is up about 5%.
Being the world leader clearly matters. So far, Nokia has been able to use its productivity and cost base to get strong results, even with lower handset prices. It might even be able to keep it up.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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