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Painful as it was Nokia\u2019s (NOK) savage cost-cutting is clearly paying off. This morning the company posted a stronger-than-expected 65 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit<\/a> on rising handset sales — smartphone sales in particular. <\/p>\nRemarkably, Nokia — which saw its share of the smartphone market decline to 35 percent from 41 percent last quarter<\/a> — managed to push it back up to 40 percent in Q4. Quite a surprise considering many had expected the company\u2019s smartphone share to fall even lower this quarter.<\/p>\n Anyway, on to the numbers:<\/p>\n Fourth-quarter net income was 948 million euros ($1.33 billion), or 26 eurocents a share. That\u2019s up from 576 million euros, or 15 eurocents a share, earned in the year-earlier period and above consensus estimates which called for earnings of 19 eurocents a share. Sales during the quarter fell 5.3 percent to 12 billion euros. But the number of handsets shipped rose 12 percent to 126.9 million units.<\/p>\n “In the fourth quarter the demand environment for handsets ended up being better than we anticipated and we took advantage of this upside,” Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said during a conference call.<\/p>\n Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n