Monday, March 25, 2002		Lens on IT

CEO and chairman of Nokia Corp Jorma Ollila speaks at the Nokia Annual General meeting in Helsinki. Nokia, last week, reiterated its first-quarter earnings estimates and market share targets at its shareholders' meeting. Chief Executive Jorma Ollila told shareholders the company expected first-quarter pro forma earnings per share to meet or top € 0.15-0.17, but sales would likely fall by more than 10 per cent year-on-year due to weakness in Nokia's networks unit. 

Trader Ben Klein (center/front) shouts an order in the trading group trading Hewlett Packard stock options on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange in Chicago. Hewlett-Packard Co. last week claimed victory in the hotly contested shareholder vote for its acquisition of Compaq Computer Corp., but dissident board member Walter Hewlett refused to concede defeat, saying he was still optimistic the deal had been rejected. 

Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW) chairman Richard Li is framed by a photographer as he announces the company's annual results in Hong Kong. PCCW said its net income was $243 million (HK$1.89 billion) last year, beating forecasts as the one-time Internet star downsized its new economy vision and shed staff to focus on its core Hong Kong telecoms business.

A Chinese man makes a call from a public phone booth in Beijing. China's telecom industry maintained speedy growth in the first month of this year, with revenue increasing 12.5 per cent to 26.323 billion yuan ($3.18 billion), according to the latest statistics released by the Ministry of Information Industry. Telephone users, including fixed-line and mobile, further rose by 7.995 million subscribers to over 331 million.

— Reuters photos