Incontestably leading the global mobile market, the Espoo-based Nokia has announced that its market share for the third quarter of 2008 is expected to be lower than initially predicted. 

Back in July, when Nokia unveiled its financial results for the second quarter of the year, the Finnish company said that its market share for Q3 2008 would be at the same level as the one reported for Q2 2008. Now, however, Nokia claims that the third quarter market share has lots of chances to be lower than the second quarter one.

The reasons for this, as exposed by the giant handset manufacturer, are as follows:

– a "tactical decision" of the company, "to not meet certain aggressive pricing of some competitors";

– and a tougher market competition coming from the other manufacturers;

Nokia’s Q2 2008 market share was of 40%, as the company has shipped no less than 122 million mobile devices all over the world. It's not clear yet how much lower the Q3 market share is, but it's unlikely to represent a drop of more than 1% or maybe 2%. Nokia says it will present a full report on its third quarter activity on October 16.

Nokia further says that, when compared to the number of units sold in 2007, the end of 2008 will bring an increase of about 10% in the total number of handsets shipped worldwide (by all manufacturers).

Talking about its mobile devices that are to be released this year, Nokia stated that they would be "on track during the remainder of the third quarter and the fourth quarter 2008." This might mean that the first full-touch Nokia phone, named Tube or "5800 XpressMedia," is indeed going to be launched before this year’s end. And, maybe, an 8 Megapixel Nokia will also come out, although there are absolutely no rumors about such a handset.