candinavia's cargo movers shouldn't expect any help this year from the region's top air shippers. Finland's Nokia and Sweden's Ericsson are both seeing a sharp slowdown in sales of mobile phones and the two high-tech giants are among many manufacturers that are focusing on cost containment rather than growth. Slackening demand in the United States is dragging down many of those companies, and Nokia and Ericsson say they are feeling rising pressure from growing inventories and weaker prices for their goods. Nokia, the largest company in Finland, is projecting 20 per-cent growth in sales of its mobile phones in the first half of this year - great for many companies, but well behind earlier projections and the historical rate that has made the company a mobile communications leader around the world.

Ericsson, a one-time darling of the high-tech field, is looking at a loss of up to $500 million in the first quarter as sales of its traditional phone equipment have fallen and sales of the mobile handsets that compete with Nokia products are below Ericsson's forecasts. Ericsson has announced it will farm out manufacturing of its phones to Flextronics International, which probably will remove material from Scandinavian sup-ply chain pipelines.

The slowdown isn't limited to the high-tech sector. Sweden's Electrolux says its sales in the United States were off 10 percent in the first two months of 2001, raising fears of excess inventories at the world's largest maker of home appliances. Most of Electrolux's top sellers - dish-washers, refrigerators and the like - don't ride aircraft, but the company has an extensive supply chain for raw materials and the prices for those goods are rising.

Electrolux is trying to maintain its margins by cutting costs, including eliminating some 2,000 jobs and looking for pricing relief for some sup-pliers, which would squeeze the company's transport vendors.

Nokia, too, is focusing on costs as it keeps aggressive profit projections in place even in a weakening mobile phone market. As the company cuts prices for its products, Nokia's suppliers say they are being pressured to cut the prices for the goods they sell to Nokia, a trend that is sure to be felt by the air cargo operators who depend on Nokia's big shipping budget.

Nokia Chief Executive Officer Jorma Ollila says the company's inventories in the first quarter were slimmer than at the end of 2000 and that Nokia's "excellent logistics planning" would help it this year.