Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has released its earnings results for the fourth quarter of 2007, as well as for the full year—and it’s all pretty positive. Although its low-end handset business saw very slight growth, its high-end multimedia business saw very strong growth for the quarter and the year. For Q4, Nokia saw net sales increase 34 percent year-on-year to 15,717 million euros (US$23.1 billion), and operating profit increase 64 percent to 2,492 million euros (US$3.66 billion). Nokia’s mobile phone segment (which excludes its “multimedia computers") saw a 5 percent increase in net sales year-on-year to bring in 7,438 million euros (US$10.9 billion), and operating profit for the segment increased by 48 percent to 1,858 million euros (US$2.7 billion). Multimedia handsets increased 42 percent to 3,026 million euros (US$4.44 billion) in sales, and operating profit for the segment increased by 106 percent to 670 million euros (US$983 million). As a result of all this net profit for the quarter increased by 44 percent year-on-year to 1,835 million euros (US$2.69 billion).

Handset sales: Nokia shipped 133.5 million units in Q4, up 20 percent sequentially and 27 percent year-on-year. It estimates that overall industry volumes were 336 million units, up 17 percent sequentially and 16 percent year-on-year. This gives Nokia a rough marketshare of 40 percent. The companies average selling price increased to 83 euros (US$121) from 82 euros a year ago. For converged devices, Nokia estimates the industry sold 40.1 million units in the fourth quarter compared to 22.1 million units in Q4 2006. Nokia’s converged devices didn’t grow as fast, from 11.1 million in Q4 2006 to 18.8 million in the fourth quarter of this year, of which 11 million were Nseries and 2 million were Eseries. Nokia saw increases in sales in all regions except North America, where it saw a 13.6 percent decline in unit sales, but this was more than offset by every other region.

For the full year Nokia’s total mobile device volumes were up 26 percent compared to the previous year, to 437 million units (it estimates market volume increased by 16 percent to 1.14 billion). For the year Nokia’s marketshare was 38 percent. In converged devices Nokia sold 60.5 million units compared to 39.0 million in 2006, and shipped approximately 38 million Nokia Nseries devices and approximately 7 million Nokia Eseries devices during 2007.

Full Year: For the full year 2007 Nokia saw net sales increase by 24 percent to 51,058 million euros (US$74.9 billion), and operating profit increase 46 percent to 7,985 million euros (US$11.7 billion). For its mobile phone segment sales increased by 1 percent year-on-year to 25,083 million euros (US$36.8 billion), with operating profit increasing 33 percent to 5,434 million euros (US$7.97 billion). The multimedia segment saw a 34 percent increase in net sales to 10,538 million euros (US$15.47 billion), and a 69 percent increase in operating profit to 2,230 million euros (US$3.27 billion). Net profit for the year increased 67 percent to 7,205 million euros (US$10.57 billion).

Earnings release