The world’s largest manufacturer of cell phones reported sales gains in the fourth quarter of 2009 during a conference call with reporters held on Thursday.

Nokia announced that it had seen a 60 percent profit increase in the final three months of the year, due primarily to drastic cost-cutting and gains in the company’s share of the smartphone market. The company had previously lost ground in that particular market sector to competitors like Apple and RIM and had been thought to be relying on its conventional phones for volume.

Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Mawston told the New York Times that "it was a great performance and Nokia’s best set of handset results since the first half of 2008," and suggested that the report meant "a relatively healthier near-term outlook for Nokia and the overall handset market."

Experts say that, while Nokia’s place atop the world’s cell phone makers in simple volume appears unthreatened, the company was surpassed as the most profitable cell phone maker in the world by Apple late in 2009, as iPhone sales propelled that company’s profits to stratospheric levels.

This entry was posted by Mobility Management News Desk on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Managing Mobile Devices News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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