Nokia, the No. 1 producer of cell phones globally, said that Apple’s recently unveiled iPhone was an interesting product, but the lack of 3G connectivity and relatively low sales targets mean that even Apple did not expect the first incarnation of the iPhone to be massively successful.

“It is quite an interesting product but it is lacking a few essential features, such as 3G, which would enable fast data connections,” Vanjoki, whose multimedia unit is a direct rival to Apple, was quoted as saying by Finnish business daily Taloussanomat, reports Reuters news-agency.

Chief executive of Apple – Steve Jobs – said at the unveiling of the iPhone that his company could sell 10 million iPhones in 2008, which is not a lot for the market of cell phones. Back in Q2 2006 Gartner predicted that the total available mobile phone market would be 960 million units for the whole year, inline with Q3’s anticipation of Nokia, who predicted the market to grow to 970 million units. Nokia alone supplied 85.5 million cell phones in Q3 2006 while holding about one third of the whole market.

Earlier this week Nokia’s chief executive and president Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said that currently 850 million people use a Nokia cell phone and that during 2006 the company shipped 140 million phones with built-in cameras and 70 million phones with MP3 players.

“More than 850 million people have a Nokia mobile phone in their hands. No other consumer electronics company in the world has ever had such a customer base. In 2006, Nokia was the world’s largest camera manufacturer with approximately 140 million cameras sold as well as close to 70 million music enabled devices, making Nokia the world's largest manufacturer of music devices as well,” said Mr. Kallasvuo.

With 10 million iPhone units planned to be sold in 2008, “Apple’s objective is not at a very high level,” Mr. Vanjoki was quoted as saying.

Still, 10 million of cell phone/player hybrids is a fairly significant amount for Apple, who controls over 75% of the whole digital media player market. Back in Q4 2005 the company shipped 14.043 million of iPod players, in Q1 2006 the company sold 8.526 million iPods, in Q2 2006 the firm supplied about 8.111 million of its iPod devices and in Q3 2006 it shipped 8.729 million iPods, up from 6.451 million in the same period a year ago.

Apple iPhone is equipped with touch-screen instead of keypad, something never before available on handhelds. Apple iPhone includes support for quad-band GSM, EDGE, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 EDR wireless technologies. The iPhone features a 2 megapixel (2MP) camera and a photo management application. The iPhone, however, is not small: it features a 3.5" screen that makes the device a relatively bulky. iPhone will be available in the U.S. in June 2007, Europe in late 2007, and Asia in 2008, in a 4GB model for $499 (USA) and an 8GB model for $599 (USA), and will work with either a PC or Mac. Apple said that a contract will be required to acquire the iPhone at the aforementioned prices.