By Sinead Carew
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nokia (NOK1V.HE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)(NOK.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the world's leading mobile phone maker, does not expect to start to see returns from its investment in Internet services until 2010, Chief Financial Officer Rick Simonson said on Monday.
Nokia invested "hundreds of millions of euros" in services such as mobile music and video downloads in 2007 with an aim to gain a competitive edge against rivals but it warned that it does not expect see a big pay-back any time soon.
"We're going to continue to invest at that rate or more as we are in investment mode in 2008 and 2009. We look for 2010 to start to see where you go from investment mode ... to getting more out than you're putting in," Simonson told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in New York.
Services represented only about 84 million euro revenue ($130 million) for Nokia in the first quarter out of total company net sales of 12.66 billion euro.
"We've got to get somewhere into the billions in terms of top line revenue to make this relevant," Simonson said, referring to the services business.
Asked about Nokia's appetite for acquisitions, Simonson declined to give specific plans but said that software and services was where the company was focused as it already has a strong mobile devices business.
The executive also said Nokia, which leads the global phone market with a 40 percent share, was looking to profitably improve market share on a phone volume and value basis in the global phone market in 2008.
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