Amid Silicon Valley’s obsessive interest in Apple’s iPhones and Google’s Gphones, along with de rigueur ownership of at least one Research In Motion BlackBerry device, it’s easy to forget about the quiet Finnish giant that dominates not just the sale of smartphones but the sale of all mobile devices worldwide.

Last year Nokia rang up $US74 billion ($120 billion) billion) in sales and counted operating profit of more than $US12 billion.

Its customers number about 1 billion, or one in every six people on the planet.

When chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo dropped in at the Nokia Research Centre in Palo Alto, California, he did so without any fanfare.

Aside from the occasional stray news photographer, there was no sign that a major world business leader was on the premises. Like the global company he guides, Kallasvuo is decidedly low-key.

A mild-mannered, understated approach has made Nokia the leading mobile phone manufacturer for the past decade.

In the following interview Kallasvuo talks about the threats posed by new competitors, the future of the industry and what he was looking for in Silicon Valley.

To read this interview in full in Australian IT, see www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24560981-5013041,00.html.