six word

By Rachel Sanderson

PARIS (Reuters) - The luxury unit of the world's top mobile handset maker Nokia sees a booming market for mobiles studded with diamonds as the super rich snap up its latest 270,000 euro ($338,500) phone faster than it can make them.
Vertu's "Signature Cobra", a sapphire and gold phone with a diamond and ruby snake slithering down its sides, was launched two weeks ago in Paris and Mumbai, aimed at the growing ranks of the world's wealthy.
"So far we are selling them faster than we are making them," Vertu President Alberto Torres said in an interview at the World Luxury Congress in Paris.
"We have only made two and we have already sold five. We are only going to make eight."
Torres spoke to Reuters ahead of the third-quarter earnings release from parent company Nokia, which said it booked 20 percent higher sales of 10.1 billion euros, thanks in large part to robust demand for cheap phones in emerging markets.
Vertu, one of Nokia's smallest but most profitable units, is banking on demand from those same regions. But whereas Nokia's cheap handset sales led to a lower operating margin of 13 percent, margins at its luxury line are still above 20 percent, Torres said.
Beyonce and David Beckham are among its most famous clients, but Vertu, together with French jeweller Boucheron, launched its glittery "Cobra" phone in Mumbai because it expects a chunk of its future clientele to be the subcontinent's newly rich entrepreneurs and Bollywood stars.
"India is not one of our largest markets, but it is a market that we think will be very big in the future," Torres said.

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