Honest 836 Report post Posted May 31, 2008 Worldwide Mobile Sales See 13.6% Rise Worldwide sales of mobile phones reached 294.3 million units in the first quarter of 2008, a 13.6 percent increase over the first quarter of 2007, according to Gartner. In the first quarter of 2008, 114.4 million mobile devices were sold in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. This represents a 26.6 percent increase over the first quarter of 2007. India remained a high-growth market, and South Korea became a high-growth market as well during this quarter, as consumers upgraded their handsets before new extended contracts are put in place by operators in the second quarter of 2008. The growth in the APAC region was driven by several factors, including a high number of new subscribers, lower-priced phones based on wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) technology, low-cost global system for mobile communications (GSM) phones, and ultra-low-cost CDMA devices, according to Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst (Mobile Terminals) at Gartner Mumbai. Meanwhile, sales in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa reached 56.4 million units, representing a 25.8 percent increase year-on-year. Whereas in Japan, mobile sales numbered 13.2 million units in the first quarter of 2008, a decrease of 10.1 percent year-on-year. The same with Western Europe where sales totalled 35.9 million units in the first quarter of 2008, a decrease of 16.4 percent from the first quarter of 2007. There were no new phone features in the first quarter of 2008 strong enough to drive growth unlike the first quarter of the previous year wherein having a music player function or an embedded integrated services digital broadcasting terrestrial (ISDB-T) tuner was reason enough for users to replace their mobile devices, according to Nahoko Mitsuyama, principal analyst (Mobile Communications Research) of Gartner. As regards mobile phone manufacturers, Finland-based Nokia retained top slot with selling 115.2 million mobile phones followed by Samsung (number 2) with 42.4 million units, Motorola (number 3) with 29.9 million units, LG (number 4) with 23.6 million units, Sony Ericsson (number 5) with 22.1 million units, and others with 61.1 million units. Courtesy : Techtree Share this post Link to post Share on other sites