It was a fitting symbol for how weak the world's largest mobile phone maker is doing in U.S. sales. Still, one of the phones it had on display was the newly announced E71x smartphone, seen by many as a way for Nokia to increase its U.S. customers.

Thursday, the Helsinki, Finland, company announced a in quarterly earnings but also said its global share of sales is 37%, making it easily the world's largest mobile phone provider.

Still, for many reasons, Nokia had only 8.4% of the U.S. market in 2008, a drop from about 20% three years ago, according to IDC and several analyst firms.

Nokia's first quarter showed it sold 30% more phones in North America in the first quarter of 2009, reaching 3.4 million units, and up from the 2.6 million units sold in the previous year. Even with that surge in sales, North America is by far Nokia's smallest sales region. However, North America also was the only region to show an increase in sales in the quarter. Unit sales were down worldwide by more than 19%.

The mobile phone maker sold the most devices in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by Europe, according to information from Thursday's earnings call.