Share
While you’d be forgiven for thinking that hardware saturation would eventually have a negative impact on the market performance of mobile phones, new figures published by technology consultants at Gartner show that emerging markets have contributed to global mobile phone sales still rising over the last twelve months.
Global mobile phones sales on the up in 2007. Credit: GaetanLee/Flickr.
Specifically, UK-based Gartner outlines that more than 1.15 billion mobile phone units were sold worldwide throughout 2007, which is a marked 16 percent jump from the 990.9 million units sold in 2006.
“Emerging markets, especially China and India, provided much of the growth as many people bought their first phone,” commented Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices at Gartner.
Milanesi went on to say that consumers in mature markets such as Japan and Western Europe also played a role via demand for feature-rich devices packed with extras such as TV tuners, GPS units, touch screen interfaces and high-resolution digital cameras.
While Milanesi anticipates that emerging markets will extend mobile phone sales growth during 2008, this year’s increase will lose a degree of momentum due to the gathering weight of saturation in the more mature markets, which will subsequently shift growth from 2007’s 16 percent to around 10 percent.
Specific manufacturer performance during 2007 saw handset leader Nokia successfully hitting its long-term target of 40 percent market share throughout 2007’s final quarter, thanks to more than 133 million worldwide handset sales.
Nokia’s placement in emerging markets led to its 1110, 1160 and 2630 mobile phones being in demand, while mature markets focused in on upper tier offerings such as the N73, N82 and heavyweight N95 smartphone.
Samsung continued to hold is second place on the market-share ladder through the performance of its Ultra and Ultra II ranges, while Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG Electronics round out the top five performers.
Interested in a more interactive TTH? Join our Facebook Group Want regular updates from The Tech Herald? Follow us on Twitter
Advertising
Comment on this Story