This time last year, Nokia was seeing 85% profits. In today’s 3rd Quarter wrap up report, Nokia saw its net income sink 30%, landing under 1.5 billion while sales slipped 5% and market share fell to just 38%, down 2 percentage points since the beginning of the year.

While we’re seeing struggles everywhere, this 1/3 drop far surpasses the European S&P 350, which has fallen about 24% over the same period. Interestingly enough, Nokia warned that this would happen, and it is suspected that this warning helped sink them even further. While hopes are high, since the holiday season is right around the corner, it’s still a shaky situation. Such a huge drop cannot be recovered, at least not quickly, and the Finnish mobile giant has a lot of rebounding to do.

 The news isn’t all bad for Nokia though…

• Nokia’s unit shipments in the quarter grew by 5%
• Nokia is the world’s 5th most valuable brand
• Executives are still predicting a revenue growth of 10.5% this year
• Nokia also promises to maintain or grow its third-quarter market share in the last quarter of 2008
• AND… an exciting debut- the N85 is getting great reviews! (See Below and Engadget for more!)

A big thank you to Engadget and Business Week for info this week!

After it’s supposed debut in the box office hit “The Dark Knight,” the Nokia XpressMedia 5800 Tube has been caught in the wild again.  Nokia has not released any official information on this slick looking handset, but it looks like it just might be a dandy of a phone.

Nokia 5800 Tube Specs

According to intomobile.com, the latest of Nokia’s lineup will be shipped in late 2008 as the Nokia 5800 Tube and will show-off a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus.  It will also include a 3.2-inch touchscreen display with 16 million colors, which is slightly less than its competitor’s iPhone screen with a 3.5-inch multi-touch display.  As far as communication goes, the Nokia Tube will have a quad-band GSM/EDGE radio with 3G UMTS/HSDPA.  Pair this up with Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi, and some GPS navigation and you will be home free.

And as far as the little extras go … there are plenty of them.  A 3.5 mm headphone jack and TV-out port is included with along with the ability to “geo-tag” pics.  Nokia is putting out a great phone with the Nokia 5800 Tube, but they aren’t considering it their “flagship device.”

Some Pictures of Nokia’s New Baby

Will It Compete?

I think that the Nokia 5800 Tube phone will be a great smartphone for people who want a great device, without all of the “extras.”  This phone has some good specs, but still may not be able to compete with the Apple iPhone 3G or a new BlackBerry device.  Nokia continues to push out new phones and are consistently a good option for any tech device … so my prediction for the late 2008 release of this phone is that you won’t be disappointed. 

Yahoo! News had an interesting article this afternoon that claims that global cell phone sales have soared in the first quarter of 2008 by 14 percent.  Nokia holds the number one spot in global sales, followed by Samsung and then Motorola.

To see more of this article, check out the Yahoo! News article “Report:  Global Cell Phone Sale Up 14 pct in 1Q“