Nokia - Nokia's Ollila Sees Camera Phones Booming

Nokia's Ollila Sees Camera Phones Booming

Smile when you make that call: Camera phones are the hottest devices in the cellular marketplace, according to Nokia (nyse: NOK - news - people ) Chief Executive Jorma Ollila. Speaking at an industry event in Amsterdam to promote the Finnish cellular giant's new line of N Series handsets, Ollila said the company expects to ship 100 million camera phones this year, 25 million smart phones, and 40 million phones with built-in MP3 music players. "Digital camera phones have really been the growth area in the mobile handset business," said Ollila. Earlier this month, a report from analysis firm Strategy Analytics said that 257 million camera phones were shipped worldwide in 2004, representing 38% of total handset sales. That's up sharply from 84 million, or 16% of sales, in 2003. Camera phones outsold digital still cameras by almost 4 to 1, the latter reaching just 68 million units globally in 2004.

A new Strategy Analytics report released Wednesday shows Nokia gaining overall market share during the first two months of this year, to 31.3%. Rivals Motorola (nyse: MOT - news - people ) and Samsung Electronics also saw gains, and now hold 16.7% and 14.2% of the market, respectively