The analyst says that production of Nokia's more affordable handsets was hit ahead of the quarter by low supplies of electronic components.
While the Finnish handset manufacturer attempted to offset the dearth of components by distributing more of its stockpiled inventory, Gartner says the lower end of the market still saw excessive demand from customers.
However, the short availability of low-end handsets simply led some buyers to increase their budgets and opt for a more fully featured model instead.
This resulted in the statistics as a reduction in unit sales but an increase in revenues for Nokia.
Combined with the impact of changing currency exchange rates between the third quarters of 2009 and 2010, the overall financial performance of the company proved to be better than expected, Gartner concludes.
