Brightpoint, a US distributor of mobiles and other wireless devices, sees Nokia on its way to reaching 40% of the global market and strong in all price ranges, Brightpoint's CEO, quoted by a Reuters report, said.
'Nokia's market share is on its way towards the 40 % mark, and it has a superior standing in cheap, mid-range as well as high-end wireless devices,' Brightpoint CEO Bob Laikin told Finnish financial daily Kauppalehti.
Nokia, the world's top mobile phone maker, is Brightpoint's largest customer, and reported a global market share of 36% in the first quarter of 2007, the Reuters report said.
Brightpoint estimates 200 million smartphones, one of Nokia's key segments, will be sold this year, the Reuters report said.
The Reuters report further quoted Laikin as saying he expected Apple's new iPhone, set to go on sale in the US on June 29, would have only a novelty position in the market.
'Apple will have to do other things in addition to creating hype, if it wants a large number of buyers for its phone,' Laikin was quoted as saying.