Nokia, the world's leading handset maker, reported a 90-percent drop in its first-quarter net profit on Thursday but its shares shot higher as investors seized on signs of improving market conditions.

The Finnish firm's net profit in January-March plunged to 122 million euros (160 million dollars), the weakest net profit this decade as the company saw its sales dive amid the global financial crisis.

"The macro (economic) environment is causing many people to trade down and purchase lower priced handsets," chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo told reporters.

Nokia has announced more than 3,000 job cuts since January as part of a vast cost-cutting plan, including 1,000 voluntary departure packages.

Kallasvuo said sales from January to March were hit as retailers held back on ordering new handsets, but a possible pick-up was seen in the next quarter.

Nokia's market share of 37 percent was down from 39 percent in the same quarter a year ago amid stiffer competition from "smartphone" makers Blackberry and Apple but was stable from the fourth quarter.

The company said however it saw light at the end of the tunnel and expected its market share to rise in the second quarter.

"There are some nascent signs of relative stability, and I emphasize relative, in the market," Nokia's financial director Rick Simonson told Bloomberg television.

Kallasvuo was cautious however, saying "it is too early to say that end-consumer demand has hit the bottom."

But he noted it was getting easier to predict demand after a sharp fall in the second half of 2008.

"We believe the market is no longer falling in an uncontrolled manner," Kallasvuo said.

Shares in Nokia surged after the results were released and were up 8.8 percent to 11.03 euros at 1430 GMT on the Helsinki stock exchange, which was 4.22 percent higher.

One unnamed trader quoted by Dow Jones Newswire said the figures in the earnings report were lower than expected "but the outlook is quite reassuring."

Lower retailers' inventories mean that mobile phones that are delivered to stores will be in consumers' hands fairly quickly rather than waiting in storage, explained Michael Schroeder, an analyst at FIM Bank in Helsinki.

Hannu Rauhala, an analyst at Finland's Pohjola bank, pointed out that "mobile phone component makers have announced higher capacity" utilisation during recent weeks, which could also be a sign that demand was picking up.

Schroeder said Nokia's results were "pretty well in line with forecasts," pointing to "slightly higher than anticipated sales" of mobile phones sold.

"The first quarter results were a relief, there were profitability fears," he added.

The company's operating profit dropped by 74.1 percent to 514 million euros, from 1.98 billion euros for the first quarter of 2008.

Sales amounted to 9.28 billion euros, down by 26.7 percent from 12.66 billion euros during the same period in 2008.

Nokia said it sold 93.2 million phones in the first quarter, a drop of 19 percent from the same period a year ago.

Sales decreased in all key markets as the average selling price slid to 65 euros from 71 euros in the previous quarter. However, sales in North America, not a key market for the Finnish firm, increased by 21 percent.

Nokia reiterated it saw global mobile device volumes falling around 10 percent in 2009 year-on-year.

The company aims to achieve some 700 million euros in savings over the next two years as part of a restructuring plan announced last January.

Simonson noted that Nokia would continue to review its cost structure.

"We are making a good progress and we are working to accelerate the realisation of these cost savings," he said.