Nokia Sells 1 Billionth Mobile Phone

While the global mobile subscription base has now reached two billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, Nokia is celebrating its own milestone.

"The continued rapid growth in mobile subscriptions has exceeded even the mobile industry's own estimates. Since the early 1990's we have seen voice go truly wireless and mobile phones evolve from voice centric to feature driven devices. Earlier this summer, Nokia sold our one billionth mobile phone - a Nokia 1100 sold in Nigeria," says Kai Öistämö, Senior Vice President, Mobile Phones. "It will be new growth markets like Nigeria that will fuel the growth towards three billion subscribers by 2010."

Nokia has introduced hundreds of mobile phone models since the early 1980s. The company has manufactured mobile phones in high volumes since the beginning of 1990s, when the first digital networks were introduced. In 1998, Nokia announced it had manufactured its 100 millionth mobile phone, and became the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer.

Since the Mobira Senator car phone introduction in 1982 until September 2005, Nokia has introduced around 400 phone models to all major analogue and digital standards.

The Nokia 3310 / 3330 series sold 126 million units from its launch in 2000 until its "retirement" earlier this year. For comparison, the combined total of all Nokia phones sold between 1991 and 1998 is 100 million.

In 1991 Nokia sold 800 000 phones. In 2004, it manufactured 207.7 million phones, which equals 6.5 phones per second.