NOKIA: Creating New Markets At the end of 2003, Nokia was the clear market leader in the mobile industry in terms of sales and profitability. It was ahead of giants such as Motorola, Ericsson, Siemens, Samsung and other worthy competitors. Since the early 1990s, Nokia's strategic intent has been to build distinctive competencies in product innovation, rapid response and global brand management. Its strategic intent called for rapid growth in its core businesses of mobile telephony and telecommunications networks. This has been achieved through Nokia's development of new products and expansion into new markets. To become the global leader it is today, the company has overcome numerous challenges and obstacles over the past decade. In 1990, Nokia Mobile Phones (NMP) was the smallest of Nokia's five business divisions, with annual sales of $500. million and 3,051 employees. Jorma Olilla, the new president of NMP, that same year led the division to become the world's second largest mobile phone manufacturer after Motorola, just a year and a half later. Motorola and NEC, the third-largest competitor, were the dominant players with a combined global market share of 33%, compared to NMP's share of 13%. During this period, the main customers of cell phones were business users who could afford the high prices. Everyday consumers were not particularly attracted to these high prices and limited feature phones. Despite these limitations, the mobile phone market was growing rapidly, which brought more Asian manufacturers into the competition. To make matters worse, there was a lot of proprietary technology and equipment needed for analog standards around the world. The emergence of digital technology has provided hope for a uniform communication standard. As a result, NMP had to make a difficult decision regarding which technology to invest significant resources in. In the early 1990s, Nokia focused on building and maintaining its current expertise. NMP has created valuable alliances across the industry and made key acquisitions to increase economies of scale, market share and access to research and development resources. The management believed in the growing acceptance of digital technology as a uniform communication standard in the future. Nokia has partnered with AT&T, Alcatel and AEG to advance the development of a digital phone and network.