Nokia shares are getting a boost Thursday morning from Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha, who raised his rating on the mobile phone maker to Outperform from Underperform, with a new target of 6 Euros, up from 4 Euros. The stock closed at 4 Euros yesterday; in dollars that would be a 50% move from yesterday’s close at $5.08 to $7.62.
Forbes belives that Windows Phone is going to be the third major cell phone platform because of Nokia.
“We fundamentally believe that Nokia’s focus on Windows will allow the company to drive a recovery through 2012 in both its top-line and earnings,” he writes. Garcha now sees 2012 EPS of 25 Euro cents a share, up from 24 cents, with 2013 profits of 60 Euro cents a share, up from 40 cents.
“Longer term, we believe that Nokia can command a 13% market share within smartphones driven by Windows Phone platform based on three key factors,” he writes. “First, we see sensible and aggressive pricing from the outset with initial Lumia devices priced between €180 to €300 to carriers. Second, we see decent support for Windows ecosystem as confirmed by our recent survey of carriers. Third, we believe that the quality of Windows platform is quite good, which, combined with Nokia’s brand, distribution, scale and [intellectual property] should enable it to capture smartphone share making it the third ecosystem behind Android and Apple.”Source Forbes
