Company reports 9 rise in Q3 operating profit, beats estimates
Net sales fall 8 to 4.33 bln euros, missing expectations
North America has started to show signs of growth, CEO says
India will return to growth next year, CEO adds

STOCKHOLM, Oct 17 Reuters Finnish telecom equipment supplier Nokia on Thursday reported a 9 rise in thirdquarter operating profit on cost cuts, and echoed rival Ericsson in seeing demand recovery in some areas.

However, quarterly net sales fell 8 to 4.33 billion euros 4.70 billion, missing estimates of 4.76 billion euros due mainly to lower sales to India. That sent its shares down 3.

Both Nokia and Ericsson said North America has started to show signs of growth after years of weakness, but Nokia39;s market share in the region had dropped after losing contracts with Verizon and ATT over the years.

We have seen a really bad cycle… Now that decline is over and it is starting to gradually recover, which is good, but it telecom will never be a huge growth market, CEO Pekka Lundmark said in an interview.

He cautioned that growth was happening more slowly than earlier expected.

North America has started to show pretty good signs, and we had strong growth in Q3 in network infrastructure, Lundmark said.

Nokia39;s total addressable market in telecom stands at around 84 billion.

To look for growth, Nokia has been targeting the data centre and defence sectors, splurging 2.3 billion to buy U.S. optical networking gear maker Infinera in June…