Finnish telecoms company Sonera has said that it does not expect a mass market for 3G services to appear until 2004 or 2005. The company also announced a pre-tax loss of E4 million for 2001, compared with an E314 million profit in 2002.
Sonera does not think networks will be a problem; indeed, as its license conditions required, the company rolled out its 3G network for January 1 this year. However, it does not expect enough handsets will be available for mass-market use for another two years.
The company expects this problem will hit its revenues in Finland, with revenue growth falling way below 5% this year as customers delay upgrading to GPRS and 3G because they cannot get hold of handsets.
