Nokia's transition to new mobile telephone products that can handle Internet data and picture-swapping remains on track and no technical issues have hampered deliveries, the company's chief financial officer said on Tuesday.

[ See Latest Nokia GPRS Phones]
The executive, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, was responding to fears stoked by component supplier RF Micro, which recently blamed its own sales shortfall on product delays at an unnamed major customer that many analysts suspected was Nokia.

"Nokia's product introductions are on time," declared Kallasvuo in response to an analyst's question during a mid-quarter conference call to update investors. "(There are) no technical issues ... That's what you can conclude," he said in response to a second analyst's question.

The official said that Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, was currently making a transition from sales of high-volume, low-cost phones to next generation GPRS, or General Packet Radio Services, ones with advanced Internet and multimedia messaging capabilities.

Speaking of handset shipments in the second quarter, Kallasvuo said, "We have seen a mix for more low-end products and less GPRS phones. This will change rapidly as we move to the middle of the year (and more feature-rich phones)."

The Nokia official said that investors and the component suppliers themselves over the years have frequently misinterpreted problems at particular Nokia suppliers as translating into problems with Nokia products themselves.

"I am not making a reference to any specific vendor. People often make wrong conclusions from the statements of different component vendors. I want to emphasize that Nokia's product introductions are on time for 2002," Kallasvuo said.

Shares of RF Micro, the world's leading maker of power amplifiers used in mobile phones, lost one-third of their value on Friday after the company warned that sales for its current quarter would fall short.

The stock has regained a portion of that this week, with shares up 2.3 percent to $10.67 in Tuesday morning trading on the Nasdaq stock market.

Shares of Nokia, which earlier said that its own sales would fall short of expectations but that it would still meet profit targets in the second quarter, were up 6.31 percent at 14.15 euros on the Helsinki Stock Exchange.


[ See Latest Nokia GPRS Phones]