The worldwide market for mobile phones continues to swell, as new research shows handset makers sold 153 million devices in the first quarter. However, market leader Nokia Corp. witnessed a significant drop in its market share, despite managing to increase its shipments by 5 million units.
“Another record quarter of mobile-phone sales resulted from an Asia/Pacific market buoyed by purchases for the Chinese New Year, healthy growth in emerging markets and surprising numbers of people in mature markets choosing to upgrade their phones,” said Ben Wood, principal analyst for mobile terminals research at Gartner. “Based on first-quarter results, we believe worldwide mobile-phone sales will exceed 600 million units in 2004.”
Nokia, slammed by gaps in its product portfolio, saw its market share decline from 34.6 percent in the first quarter of last year to 28.9 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to Gartner. The firm said Nokia’s “dramatic” drop in market share was due to a weak product portfolio and more Western European carriers opting to use phones from Nokia’s competitors.
Gartner found that Motorola Inc. enjoyed increased shipments, as did Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
On a regional basis, sales in North America grew 30 percent in the first quarter. Gartner said the increase was due to healthy competition between operators of CDMA and GSM networks and consumers gravitating toward color phones with built-in cameras.
