Mannesmann AG on Wednesday reaffirmed its forecast for "clearly improved" group results in 1998, helped by a significant rise in telecommunications earnings. "Mannesmann expects a substantially improved result compared to 1997," the company said in a statement, repeating the forecast it made in August. Despite high start-up losses and goodwill amortisation in telecoms activities in Europe outside of Germany, the group's telecommunications businesses were also expected to show clear gains.

Nokia sees mobile subscriptions rise: Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia said on Wednesday it had raised its forecast for the world's mobile phone subscribers to one billion in 2005. "We now estimate that there will be about one billion subscribers in 2005 and that a substantial portion of the phones sold that year will have multimedia capabilities," Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila said in a statement. Nokia's previous forecast was not immediately available. Thecompany also said strong market development this year had reinforced confidence in its outlook for the third quarter.

Biocompatibles focus on cost: Biocompatibles International Plc's new chief executive Crispin Simon said on Wednesday that he was taking dramatic steps to "force performance out of the business", scaling dwon costs and focusing on a mix of projects which could generate short-term sales and cash and long-term commercial advantage. Simon said he had found a business with a lot of technology but too little commercial strategy.