Nokia, the world's leading mobile phone maker, reported on July 17 an 8% rise in underlying second-quarter net profit and its shares soared 9% despite a heavy hit for closing its Bochum plant in Germany.
Nokia also announced that its market share had risen to 40%.
Net profit for the April-June period, excluding one-off items, rose to 1.37 billion euros (US$2.17 billion) from the same quarter a year ago, while sales grew 4% to 13.15 billion euros.
The group's biggest market is now the Asia-Pacific region, where it sold 36.4 million phones, a rise of 42.2% from a year ago and ahead of Europe where it sold 27.1 million handsets.
Analyst Jari Honko from eQ Bank said strong sales volumes indicated the global economic turmoil had not stopped people from buying new cell phones. Nokia upgraded its forecast for the mobile device industry's annual sales growth and said it saw sales increasing more than 10%.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2008
