Nokia sees messaging phone sales surging

A model displays a Nokia E71 mobile phone for photographers at a launch event in Singapore June 16, 2008.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - The world's top cellphone maker, Nokia (NOK1V.HE), expects very fast sales growth for its full-keyboard messaging phones this year, a senior company official said on Monday.

"We have had some great success, like the E71 in the past and now the E72, and clearly when we look at this year, the growth rate of these messaging devices will continue to be extremely high," Vice President Ilari Nurmi told Reuters during a visit to Saudi Arabia.

Nurmi declined to be more specific.

Nokia's E71 full-keyboard business phone has been among the best models from the Finnish firm, and now the company aims to increase the availability of large keyboards in its smartphones.

In the December quarter, Nokia's sales of its E-series handsets roughly doubled from a year earlier, to 6.1 million phones.

Nokia's partnerships with Microsoft (MSFT.O) and IBM (IBM.N) -- to bring Outlook and Lotus corporate emails to cellphones -- should help Nokia in the North American market, he said.

"One of the things that we are able to do in the North American market is to utilize the partnerships that we have with the companies like Microsoft and IBM ... for success in that particular market," Nurmi told Reuters.

Nokia has tried for years to attack Research in Motion's (RIM.TO)(RIMM.O) position as the leading wireless email provider for corporations, but has so far been unable to challenge RIM in the key North American market.

(Writing by Tarmo Virki and Ulf Laessing; Editing by John Wallace)