ESPOO, Finland, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- The growth in global mobile-phone demand should continue into next year despite earlier expert predictions of a downturn, the head of Nokia predicted.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Jorma Ollila said expectations that mobile sales would fall off over the next few years appeared to be misplaced and that demand would actually increase.
"The buzz that there is in the Middle East, the Gulf and Africa is the same we saw in China seven or eight years ago in the early part of the market cycle, the same we saw a couple of years ago in Latin America," Ollila said.
The Times said phone shipments this year have been slightly higher than in 2004 despite earlier predictions that they would cool considerably. Healthy demand for low-costs phones in developing nations have lifted world sales along with steady phone replacement rates in mature markets.
