Thursday, June 24, 2004
Finland losing research edge: Nokia
REUTERS
HELSINKI: The technology research gap between Finland and developing economies is narrowing rapidly as R&D resources in top global handset maker Nokia's homeland have weakened, the firm was quoted saying on Thursday.
"The level of research in both traditional industrial countries and in developing economies has clearly caught up on Finland's lead," Erkki Ormala, Nokia's technology policy vice- president, told Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat.
"China and India are already becoming competitive," he said, adding that Finland had failed to grasp important technology development sectors as successfully as other countries.
"The level of resources in the best (research) institutes (in Finland)...has weakened in recent years," Ormala said.
About two thirds of Nokia's global research and development (R&D) staff of 19,800 last year were employed in Finland, where it taps universities' research in addition to its own R&D.
Nokia's global success since the 1990s has helped boost Finland's technology research and development, and Finland retains one of the world's highest handset penetration rates.
In past months Nokia has been losing market share to rivals like Motorola and Samsung in its core mobile phone market, suffering from a lack of mid-priced camera phones and so-called clamshell handsets which flip open.
Nokia has sought especially to tap growing demand for mobile phones and services in emerging markets such as China, the world's largest mobile market, as well as India, Russia and Latin America.
Copyright © 2004 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.