Nokia bets on Internet for the future; Extends partnership with Yahoo

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) today outlined its vision for the future of the mobility industry, predicting that the Internet would become the key driving force in a market it expects to reach 4 billion global subscriptions during 2010. The comments were made in a speech by Nokia CEO and President, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, to more than 2,000 people from the mobile and Internet industries attending the Nokia World 2006 conference.

“Mobile communications is once again changing even faster than many of us have predicted, and we are still far away from this being a mature market.” said Kallasvuo. “The Internet has transformed the way we live our lives and communicate with each other, and we expect it to play a key role in the next phase of Nokia’s growth. The next wave of the Internet will be to make it truly mobile, creating new ways for people to connect to others and find information from wherever they are. Nokia intends to be at the forefront of this new era and be the company that truly merges the Internet and mobility.”

According to Nokia, the growth in the mobility industry was accelerating faster than predicted earlier, and that it now expected the industry to reach the milestone of 3 billion mobile subscriptions globally in 2007. Beside Internet - music, mobile TV and navigation services will also play a key role in driving this growth.

At the same time, during the first day of the Nokia World event, Nokia announced an extension of its partnership with Yahoo!, to offer Yahoo! branded services including Yahoo! Mail and Messenger on Nokia’s wide range of mobile phones operating on the Series 40 platform. Yahoo! services will initially be available on the newly announced Nokia 6300, the Nokia 5300 XpressMusic and the Nokia 5200. Moving forward these services and the ability to synchronise Yahoo! contacts, tasks and calendar on the PC and phone will be added to an even wider range of Nokia’s Series 40 devices.