SAN JOSE, Calif.-Nokia Corp. and Samsung Corp. came out ahead of the curve in worldwide mobile phone sales during the third quarter, according to Gartner Dataquest. However, Motorola Inc. and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications failed to take advantage of a growing market-with Sony Ericsson in particular seeing a precipitous drop in its phone sales.
While Nokia managed to grow its shipments by 13 percent and Samsung by a staggering 52 percent during the year, Sony Ericsson’s total number of phone sales declined by 30 percent. The news comes as Sony Ericsson officials have expressed growing concern over the joint venture. Motorola’s total sales grew just 2 percent, while Siemens AG managed to grow almost 13 percent.
Nokia managed to further expand its lead in the worldwide mobile-phone business by increasing its total market share from 34 percent to almost 36 percent. Motorola came in second, with Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson rounding out the top five.
Further, mobile-phone sales in general increased by 7.8 percent over the same period last year, with 104 million phones selling during the third quarter.
“This is only the second time ever that the third quarter has realized mobile terminal sales volume in excess of 100 million units,” said Bryan Prohm, senior analyst with the Mobile Communications Worldwide research group for Gartner Dataquest. “The most encouraging development was that each of the six principal geographic regions tracked by Gartner Dataquest recorded a sequential increase in demand.”
