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Nokia has come out fighting, after its first ever decline in handset revenues during 2008, and set out its stall for 2009 with uncharacteristic aggressiveness. CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said Nokia would "seek revenge" over its competitors, especially in the important touchscreen market, where he admitted the Finnish giant had lagged behind at first.

In an interview with the London Financial Times, Kallasvuo reiterated some of his pet messages about turning Nokia into a web services company, but also focused on the heartland device business, saying it had "become a follower" in touchscreens, but would gain the lead during 2009, and would unveil technology that was applicable across a far wider range of device types - including non-handsets and low cost cellphones - than current offerings from the touchscreen leaders like Apple and the Koreans.

Currently Nokia has just two touchscreen phones, the N97 high end smartphone and the 5800 musicphone, but it is set to launch perhaps a dozen additions, in various market sectors, through this year.

Another basic of the recession survival plan, of course, is to diversify Nokia's efforts into software and add-on services, but many analysts believe this will not impact the company's performance significantly until consumers loosen their belts and are more willing to spend on add-on services such as Comes With Music. The FT quoted a source familiar with the UK version of this unlimited downloads offering as saying initial sales had been "okay, but not earth shattering".

And a further fundamental Nokia strategy was clearly reinforced by Kallasvuo in the interview - managing the balance between volume and margin more effectively than most rivals, most painfully Motorola, have done, as the market shifts its balance towards emerging markets and low cost models. Nokia is determined to retain as much of its enviable margin as possible, even if this means reducing volumes, by leveraging its superior buying power and supply chain, and by addressing the surging market for midrange phones and web services in new economies. "We will continue to combine market share and margins in the right way in order to maximize the bottom line," said Kallasvuo, who believes - like most analysts - that Nokia will increase its market share, albeit in a reduced overall market, in 2009.

According to researchers at Gartner, Nokia sold 118m phones in the third quarter of 2008, close to the combined sales of its four nearest rivals, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and LG. Kallasvuo said: "When times are tougher, people who have stronger positions fare relatively better than the competition . . . So, overall, I believe many of our competitors will have limitations here in terms of their ability to do things." He also boasted of Nokia's strong brand and balance sheet, with net cash of $4bn as of September 30.

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