India Now Second-Largest Nokia Market

India has leapfrogged the US to become the second-largest market for Nokia mobile phones, three years earlier than predicted.

Mobile phone maker Nokia knew China was its biggest market. But for a while the US had been running behind it, with others lagging behind. But India has overtaken the US to become the company’s second-largest market for mobile phones. That has happened three years earlier than predicted, and shows the rate of change in developing countries. Nokia has shifted its focus to emerging markets such as India, a country with a total of 118 million mobile users by July this year. Incomes continue to rise, which has increased demand for mobiles, aided by low call rates. More than six million people a month in India sign up with mobile phone operators each month.   “Out of 185 million mobile phone users in India, 85 million use Nokia phones," the managing director at Nokia’s India unit added.   Unsurprisingly, India has now become a major hub for Nokia. In 2004 it employed just 450 people there, a figure that’s now grown to over 9,000. Nokia’s new factory in Chennai has shipped 60 million phones since it opened 18 months ago, and half of those were exported to other countries.   Worldwide, the firm sold 100.8 million handsets in the second quarter of this year.